Page 24 - ARUBA TODAY

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Thursday 21 december 2017 TECHNOLOGY

Facebook improves how blind can “see” images using AI

By RYAN NAKASHIMA on imposters. Starting Tues- For the visually impaired,
Technology Writer day, Facebook will notify the company is also work-
MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) — you if someone has up- ing on identifying text in
When Matt King first got on loaded your face as their manipulated photos like
Facebook eight years ago, profile picture. And just in memes, though its tech-
the blind engineer had time for alcohol-laden holi- nique isn’t quite ready for
to weigh whether it was day parties, you can also primetime. Even small ac-
worth spending an entire be notified if someone in curacy problems can ruin
Saturday morning check- your friend network has the punchline, according
ing whether a friend of his posted a compromising to Facebook accessibility
was actually in his friend picture of you without ex- director Jeff Wieland.
list. Such were the tools at plicitly tagging you.
the time for the visually im- That check is not perfect. If For Janni Lehrer-Stein, a
paired — almost nonexis- you don’t want a drunken volunteer who advises
tent. In this photo taken Monday, Dec. 18, 2017, engineer Matt King, karaoke picture of your- Facebook, the new facial
Today, thanks to text-to- who is blind, demonstrates facial recognition technology via a self online, for example, recognition capability will
audio software, it just takes teleconference at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. you can’t veto the result- help her enjoy more of her
a few seconds for him to Associated Press ing photos posted by your daughter’s recent gradu-
accomplish the same task. 2010 to suggest the identi- as an accessibility special- friends, although you can ation photos. Lehrer-Stein
And because of a new ties of people in photos. But ist. In addition to the im- ask them to take it down. had lost her sight by the
face recognition service after incorporating feed- proved facial recognition, Serious violations or dis- time she was 46, and has
the social network is rolling back from billions of user Facebook has in recent putes can be flagged to long used audio-to-text
out Tuesday, he can now interactions, Facebook felt years also automated de- Facebook staff, which they software on Facebook.
learn which friends are in confident enough to push scriptions of what’s hap- will review according to Knowing who is in each
photos, even those who its use into new territory. pening in a photo. (Those their community standards. photo makes a big differ-
haven’t been tagged by “What we’re doing with remain relatively primitive, Facebook lets the per- ence, says the sixty-some-
another user. AI is making it possible for as they’re limited to only son posting a photo have thing mother of three.
The facial recognition anybody to enjoy the ex- about 100 or so concepts the final say this way in The technology gives her
technology, which uses perience,” says 52-year- and roughly a dozen ac- order to deal with situa- enough information to
artificially intelligent algo- old King, who lost his sight tion verbs.) tions like public speaking “engage” in special family
rithms, doesn’t appear to in college due to a degen- For the sighted, the new events, where the speak- moments captured in pho-
have changed much since erative eye disease and facial recognition settings er shouldn’t have control tos, she says. “Even though
Facebook began using it in now works at Facebook will also help crack down over what’s shared. I can’t see them.”q
‘Pokemon Go’ unleashes its critters in Apple’s AR playground

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — ed reality. AR is a technol- den movement or if play- played a key role in build ago, but Apple’s technolo-
“Pokemon Go” is moving ogy that projects life-like ers approach too quickly. Google Maps, one of the gy is more advanced than
into a different dimension images into real-world set- John Hanke, CEO of “Poke- most frequently used apps what the game has been
on the iPhone, thanks to tings such as parks and mon Go” creator Niantic, on Android phones. Ap- using. Apple is hoping app
software that allows the streetscapes. believes iPhones equipped ple’s AR technology works makers will find compelling
game to play new tricks The new approach, an- with Apple’s AR software on iPhones dating back to ways to deploy its AR tools,
with its menagerie of digi- nounced Wednesday, now offer the best way to the 2015 iPhone 6S, a line- helping to hook the masses
tal critters. An upcoming adds depth to the play- play the game. That’s an up that encompasses an on a technology that so
game update relies on ing field and lets Pokemon ironic twist because Ni- estimated 200 million to far has been embraced
built-in Apple software monsters grow or shrink to antic spun out of Google, 300 million devices, includ- by a sliver of smartphone
called ARKit that gives the fit their environment. The whose Android software ing iPads. “Pokemon Go” users. If AR takes off, many
iPhone’s new ways to serve game’s creatures will now powers most of the smart- has offered an AR option analysts believe Apple will
as a portal into augment- flee when they detect sud- phones in the world. Hanke since its release 17 months branch out in a few years
and release a new line of
devices designed specifi-
cally for AR.q

In this Monday, Dec. 18,
2017, photo, Pokemon Go
is played at a park in San
Francisco.
Associated Press