Researchers develop a new technique to identify faces from reflections

Researchers conducted an experiment where image of bystanders were extracted from the corneal reflections of the photo images of an individual.

Scientists have developed a new forensics technique in which they were able to extract images from the corneal reflections of an individual of people standing nearby. The technique can be useful while conducting criminal investigations.Researchers Rob Jenkins from the University of York in Britain, and collaborator Christie Kerr, from the University of Glasgow, conducted the experiment in which they found that faces can be reconstructed from images taken of an individual with commercial digital cameras and enhanced with off-the-shelf image-processing software.

For the experiment, the scientists used a high-end digital camera and sat five volunteers for a passport-photo-like shot, using studio lighting. All the five people where in the room even when not being clicked and stood close to the photographer to be included in the reflection off the subject's corneas.

Then they asked the subjects to identify images from the reflections as well as the original digital images. Nine out of 10 volunteers were able to correctly identify from the corneal images. The group which was familiar with the five subjects were able to identify the persons with 84 percent success rate and those unfamiliar with the subjects in the photographs were able to identify with 71 percent success rate.

The researchers added that this forensics technology can be used in crimes where the victims are photographed, like abductions or child sex abuse. The reflections in the eyes of the photographic subject could help in identifying perpetrators. They added that the images of people retrieved from cameras seized as evidence during criminal investigations may be used to piece together networks of associates or to link individuals to particular locations.

"The pupil of the eye is like a black mirror. To enhance the image, you have to zoom in and adjust the contrast. A face image that is recovered from a reflection in the subject's eye is about 30,000 times smaller than the subject's face. Our findings thus highlight the remarkable robustness of human face recognition, as well as the untapped potential of high-resolution photography," Jenkins said.

"You could think of it as a foray into extreme facial recognition. Yes, the camera can resolve the face, and yes, the brain can identify it," he writes, "but both systems are pushed to their limits, and neither could perform the feat alone."

SMS to be soon accepted as official Docs in Govt dealings in India

MSs will soon be acceptable as "documentary proof" for a variety of citizen-services ranging from making payments to registrations.

  

People may soon be able to use SMSs as documentary proof with government departments. The government is launching a 'Mobile Seva' service with over 241 applications relating to health, Aadhaar, Education, RTI, and much more.

Launching the 'Mobile Seva' service, Department of Electronics and IT secretary J Satyanarayana said: "Like Railways, we have to bring in a system wherein by showing (transaction) SMS or, whatever be the case (like e-mail), the proof on mobile is accepted as valid document. To increase our reach we need to bring this kind of practice in mobile and e-governance."

India has over 90 crore mobile subscribers and with the launch of this app it will be easy for them to make transactions with various government departments. At present the digitally signed certificates are accepted as valid document and soon an SMS or a communication available on mobile phone will be accepted as valid proof.

Joint Secretary at DEITY Rajendra Kumar stated that the department is ready with digital signature for mobile phones that the government can use in messages that are to be sent to the citizens applying for a service. "We will start allocating digital signature (Public Key Infrastructure) to all government department on board in first quarter of 2014. Government departments can send communication on mobile of citizen seeking service," Kumar said. DEITY Additional Secretary Rajiv Gauba stated that about 830 departments from the Centre, state and local authorities have come on board, and the department is working on the third phase to further scale up the mobile governance platform and bring more services under its ambit.

"We have to go through inter-ministerial consultations to scale this m-governance store for launch of third phase. The third phase will have many more departments and capacity to add more services application on this store. Final shape of third phase can be known only after consultation process is complete," he said.

The app is available for Android and Java enabled phones for now. Kumar added that the department is aiming to bring all the applications to HTML5 standard which will make them compatible with all mobile platforms in the next six months.

Microsoft's Guardian App For Women's safety

Exclusively available for Windows Phone platform, the Guardian app sends alerts to select contacts, mails and posts to Facebook groups along with your location details.

The Guardian app has a 'track me' feature that allows select users in contact to track the user in real time, using Microsoft Windows Azure cloud services and Bing Map APIs. Users can also send an 'SOS' alert, connect to security agencies, police and hospitals in case of any emergency through this app.

To use the app, users need to add names of select contacts to the settings who can be reached out to in an emergency situation. Users can alert them through the SOS button. Clicking the SOS button will send a distress message to selected contacts, alerting them along with users' location. The SOS button also sends emails to select email ids and posts to private Facebook groups.

A group of Microsoft employees developed the Guardian app in a span of over six months. Microsoft's new distress app comes in the awake of recent cases of violence against women in the country, especially the last year's Nirbhaya case. So far, quite a few distress apps have been launched. Notion Ink recently launched “I'm Shakti” application for the Android platform.India’s first managed security company, SMART 24X7, recently launched ‘Panic’ Button, an Android operating system for smartphones. Some of the popular safety apps available for smartphones are Channel V's VithU, Me Against Rape, Fight Back by Whypoll, Street Safe and The Eye watch.

                     

"Our employees wanted to do something to enable people to feel safer in our cities. So they used their spare time to develop Guardian. It is a robust personal security app with more safety features and capabilities than any other comparable app available to Indian smartphone users today, Microsoft IT India Managing Director Raj Biyani is quoted as saying.

Your Smart TV can Monitor You

Smart TVs have been around for a while and most of them equipped with a whole plethora of apps as well as in-built internet connectivity, to let you stream any content of your liking. However, a few exploits were recently discovered in certain Samsung Smart TV models, which would let hackers ‘watch’ you through the built-in cameras.The security loophole, which was recently discovered and patched, essentially allowed any hacker around the globe to remotely turn on the built-cameras of the Smart TV and watch you while you watch TV.Samsung was quick in fixing this security loophole. However, the instant brings out attention to a greater problem. People are increasingly interested in Smart TVs, so they must be made aware that they come with such possible security issues. Not only that, the vendors of such electronics must make every possible attempt to ramp up their security so that they are not misused.In today’s digital age, everything is fast becoming a part of the automation equation. From home automation systems to our mobile devices, everything is virtually connected to something larger – most of the times a network, or the internet itself. And this essentially opens up the door for thousands of hackers out there to find loopholes and exploit them, in turn harming the user at the end of the day.Although companies like Samsung pay hackers for different security loopholes, so that these exploits could be patched before they are misused. But quite frequently, an exploit is discovered by the vendor company only after it has been used by a number of hackers.

WhatsApp Conversations Stolen By Malicious Android

  
 Gaming App Google recently removed 'Balloon Pop 2' from the Play store after it transpired  that they app stole users WhatsApp conversations

Google has recently identified an Android gaming app on its Play store which is potentially malicious and steals the users WhatsApp conversations. The app has been removed from the Play store. WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging apps across all major mobile platforms. This is precisely why many hackers and malware programs try to target the app and steal user conversations which are then sold on hacking forums and sites.‘Balloon Pop 2‘ was a legitimate Android app until recently. The app was available on the official Play store and from the looks of it, looked perfectly benign. However, beneath the balloon-shooting game is a malware that copies the WhatsApp conversations on a mobile device and then sends them to the WhatsAppcopy site.The conversations are made available on the said site where they are also resold to others. Interestingly, the WhatsAppcopy site claims that ‘Balloon Pop 2‘ is a legitimate way of ‘backing up‘ your WhatsApp conversations. However, the details of this operation are very murky.For instance, the description on the website reads, “Execute our game on a mobile, whatsapp conversations are sent to this website, an hour later looking for the phone, and you can read the conversations.In other words, as soon as you download and install the game, it sends a copy of your conversations to the online site. On the site, anyone can search for WhatsApp conversations by providing a phone number. If conversations from a particular phone number are available, they can then be purchased by paying a certain fee.Although the creators of the app maintain that it is a perfectly legitimate app to back up conversations, security experts say otherwise. Moreover, the fact that Google has removed it from the Play store further puts a huge question mark on its credibility

Android applications that Upgrade Bitcoin Wallets

Recently, a serious cryptography problem was discovered in Android. The exploit, when used by hackers to break into Bitcoin wallets, would’ve enabled them to steal the currency. In view of the security loophole, several Bitcoin applications have upgraded their wallets.The Android exploit could affect any such Bitcoin applications which rely on an Android component. Specifically, the Java SecureRandom class, which is used to generate random numbers automatically, was found to be problematic when it started generating same numbers for different transactions.Such repetition in what are supposed to be random transaction numbers can allow a hacker to figure out a user’s private key and by using it, steal the user’s Bitcoins.Bitcoin.org was quick to dish out a solution for this problem, “This involves generating a new address with a repaired random number generator and then sending all the money in your wallet back to yourself. Once your wallet is rotated, you will need to contact anyone who has stored addresses generated by your phone and give them a new one.”So far, a number of Bitcoin clients relying on Android have been fixed. These include Blockchain, Bitcoin Wallet, BitcoinSpinner and Mycelium Bitcoin Wallet. It has been reported that in the past, similar security exploits have been used to hack into PS3 machines, which goes on to show that the said Android exploit is serious in its nature. We hope that other Bitcoin clients too will be upgraded soon before hackers make use of this exploit.

A New Era of Hacking through Sounds

Sounds Made By A PC Can Be Used To Hack Personal Details

With every passing day, new and astonishing PC exploits are discovered. Scientists have, for instance, now revealed that the sounds made by a PC can be used to hack the personal details of its users.

This is a fairly astonishing claim because normally, the sounds made by a PC come from its CPU and are not only complex but also quite low. The exact method involves listening in on the CPU sounds very closely as it encrypts secure information. Whenever any information needs to be encrypted using the widely used RSA algorithm, such as when providing login details to a secure site, the CPU makes unique sounds known as loops. Each of these loops corresponds to a particular step in the whole encryption and decryption process. These sounds can be recorded using a mobile microphone. The next part is to take these recorded sounds and match them against unique sounds that correspond to RSA algorithms. Such an analysis of the recorded sounds can reveal the exact RSA key that is used in encryption.

Once a hacker has this information, he can not only access the personal details sent online by a user but may also be able to tap into his login information for online accounts. However, a hacker will need to physically place a low-power microphone near the PC in order to record the sounds. This microphone can be placed within a 13 feet distance of the PC which has to be tapped. Although there have been no instances where such attacks have been reported to have taken place yet, the researchers say, “We experimentally demonstrate that such attacks can be carried out, using either a plain mobile phone placed next to the computer, or a more sensitive microphone placed 4 meters away.”

What is BITCOIN?

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Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer currency. Peer-to-peer means that no central authority issues new money or tracks transactions. These tasks are managed collectively by the network.

A Bitcoin is the base currency of the Bitcoin market. It is like how we reference a Dollar or a Euro, and like the different currencies in the world, the Bitcoin trades at different values based primarily on speculation, supply and demand. One of the most attractive features of Bitcoins is that they are not controlled by any government. They cannot be artificially inflated or deflated. A monetary authority cannot pump more of them into the market to boost the economy. Basically, there is a set amount going out over time and as time goes on the amount entering the market decreases.

It is a digital currency that has made countless headlines in recent days. Its protocol is highly secure, it is anonymous and its value has soared sky high since it initially started. If you want in on the whole thing, here’s how to get you started.

Right now, the value of a single Bitcoin is fluctuating between $600 and $700. It started from virtually nothing but a few dollars per Bitcoin and soared to some $1300 before coming down and stabilizing in the current slot. This should give you an idea that Bitcoin is still a wildly fluctuating digital currency, although many herald it as the future of digital payments.

Bitcoin account and wallet:

To start in the Bitcoin business, the first thing you need is a wallet. A wallet is like your digital account where you  can receive Bitcoin, send Bitcoin from and keep your Bitcoin wealth safe. The second thing you need is link to a Bitcoin exchange so that you can directly buy Bitcoin against your dollar payments.

Coinbase is an excellent place to start because it is a fine combination of the two aforementioned features. It is a wallet plus an exchange and is fairly reliable and reputed. To create a Coinbase account, you will need to furnish your bank account and verify the phone number you provide. There’s also the option of adding a credit card which can speed up your online transactions but that’s your call.

Once you provide all this information, Coinbase will take a few days to verify these details. At times, the company may take many days to verify your details, being wary of Bitcoin-related frauds that have been perpetuated by hackers in the past. As soon as your account is verified, you can start Bitcoin-related transactions right away.

Bitcoin Address:

You will be provided a BTC address, a key which is the digital equivalent of your bank account number. Whenever you want to receive Bitcoin from someone, you will be asked to provide the BTC address. Similarly, if you want to send Bitcoin to another user, you will need that user’s BTC address.

These basics will get you started on the basics of Bitcoin. Given the digital nature of the currency, you must take every measure to keep your Bitcoin-related account information safe from possible hackers.

Bitcoin uses public-key cryptography, peer-to-peer networking, and proof-of-work to process and verify payments. Bitcoins are sent (or signed over) from one address to another with each user potentially having many, many addresses. Each payment transaction is broadcast to the network and included in the blockchain so that the included bitcoins cannot be spent twice. After an hour or two, each transaction is locked in time by the massive amount of processing power that continues to extend the blockchain. Using these techniques, Bitcoin provides a fast and extremely reliable payment network that anyone can use.

 Is bitcoin a real Capitalism?

jingle bells.. jingle bells.. jingle all the way...!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

I hope that you've accomplished everything you've set your mind on during that past year. If not, let 2014 be the year of your personal success. I wish you all the love in the world along with the peace to enjoy it.

I myself have been enjoying a wonderful readership from all over the world this past year and I hope to see you all back next year. There are some of you not celebrating Christmas, but I know that the Christmas values are there deep inside everyone. Compassion, sympathy, and love for each other is what makes us humane no matter what God you believe in and how you celebrate it.

So I am sending this warmest Christmas wishes to you and your family. Let Love, Peace and Joy fill your world this Holy season.

First Look of JOLLA

Jolla may be a completely new name in the smartphone game, but the people in charge are no rookies. Founded by former Nokia employees, the Finnish company is looking to give the MeeGo platform a new lease of life. Established in 2011, it took Jolla two years to unveil its first product.

Their first handset is called just like company itself - Jolla, but while the naming wasn't particularly innovative the Sailfish-based smartphone certainly is. It's pretty clear that plenty of fresh new ideas went into its development and the result is quite different from anything else you can get in the market.

The Jolla smartphone runs Sailfish OS - a successor of the MeeGo open platform, which Jolla took and developed further. In a way, it could be viewed as MeeGo 2.0 However, Jolla would like to start fresh and not carry the burden of its neighbor, who abandoned the project that many truly loved.

We are yet to see if the new Finnish kid on the block will feature the same sort of magic as the Nokia N9, which made so many mourn the end of MeeGo. For starters here are the key Jolla specs.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Dimensions: 131 x 68.0 x 9.9mm, 143g

Display: 4.5" IPS LCD display of 960 x 540 pixels resolution, Gorilla Glass 2, 245ppi pixel density

Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 400; dual-core Krait 200 at 1.4GHz, Adreno 305 GPU, 1GB RAM

OS: Sailfish OS

Camera: 8MP, 3264 x 2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash

Video camera: 1080p @ 30fps video capture with main camera

Storage: 16GB built-in, microSD card slot with support of up to 64GB

Connectivity: NFC, A-GPS+GLONASS, WLAN (2.4) a/b/g/n, microUSB 2.0, Bluetooth 4.0 LE

Battery: 2,100mAh Li-Ion

Misc: Android app compatibility via the Yandex.Store and Amazon Appstore

Given the price tag, the mid-range specifications came as somewhat of a nasty surprise when Jolla unveiled its smartphone. However history has shown that a smartphone can be much more than a sum of its parts and we shouldn't write off any device before giving it a proper test.

And while the screen resolution could have certainly been higher, you can't blame this one for skimping on innovation. The Jolla phone is made out of a unique combination of aluminum and premium plastic and sports a replaceable back panel dubbed "the Other Half", which allows you to automatically change profiles with covers.

5 Top Social Media lessons to be learnt

It was a big year for social media. Twitter made its successful debut on the stock market while Facebook recovered from its troubled IPO a year earlier. We also saw the launch of Vine, the rise of Snapchat and the acceptance of social media by the SEC, which said public companies could use these sites to disclose information And that was just in the United States.

In China, which has the world's biggest population of Internet users, ecommerce giant Alibaba spent $586 million for a stake in Weibo, the country's top microblogging service and a rival to Tencent's popular WeChat instant messaging app. Meanwhile, in the Ukraine, mobile phone operators were expecting a boom in data traffic as protests against the country's president were organized over social networking sites, similar to the Arab Spring of 2011.

All of which is to say that if 2013 showed us one thing, it's that there's a growing global business in accumulating friends and followers. there's a growing global business in accumulating friends and followers.

Of course, similar to previous years, there were also social media gaffes and hacks mixed in, along with plenty of celebrity narcissism and, unfortunately, twerks. We still have a ways to go in understanding and applying social media to the business world, but there was no shortage of lessons to glean from 2013.

Social Media Can Move Markets

On April 23, the Associated Press’ Twitter account was hacked, sending a fake tweet that there were “two explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured.” In a matter of seconds, the Dow dropped 150 points. Then in June, activist investor Carl Icahn joined Twitter, first using it primarily as a megaphone in his battle with Dell and later to announce his stake in companies, most notably Apple. On Aug. 13, Icahn tweeted that he had a "large position" in the iPhone maker, pushing the shares of the tech titan up about 5%.

Witnessing a single tweet swing the pendulum of markets proved that social media is every bit as valuable to day traders as it is to newsmakers.

Social Media Is Increasingly Visual

Sure, you can say a lot in 140 characters, but a picture is still worth a thousand words. In January, Twitter-owned Vine launched as a mobile service for sharing six-second looping videos. Then, in June, Facebook responded by enabling video on Instagram. 

We also saw the rise of Snapchat, a service that allows users to share photos and videos without the permanency of other social networks. That’s because users control how long (one to 10 seconds) the recipients can see their "Snaps." Once the time is up, the photo or video disappears. The service has become so popular among young Internet users that Facebook reportedly recently offered to buy it for $3 billion. Snapchat declined.

And days before its IPO, Twitter launched a product update so that tweets with Twitter photos or Vine videos display a preview thumbnail. While this facelift is still in its early days, it's already made Twitter feel like a more visual and less-textual platform.

Social Media Isn’t Just for the Kids

From Warren Buffett joining Twitter to Jamie Dimon joining the LinkedIn Influencer program, 2013 showed us that global leaders are embracing social media. 

Sometimes, the business impact can be unpredictable, as Rupert Murdoch's tweets have shown.

Social Media Advertising Is Growing, Evolving

During the Super Bowl, the most talked about advertisement wasn’t a coveted 30-second TV commercial, but rather a tweet. After a power outage at the Superdome prompted a 34 minute break in play, Oreo responded by tweeting "No power? No problem" and an image of an Oreo with the text "you can still dunk in the dark." The tweet generated strong press and proved a turning point in the opportunities for advertising on social media. 2013 also showed how much money could be made from social media advertising. In the third quarter, Facebook reported revenue grew 60% compared with a year earlier, with a large piece of that from mobile advertising. Around the same time, Facebook-owned Instagram announced sponsored posts would be coming to user newsfeeds in the United States.

Social Media Could Be TV’s Best Ally

In October, Nielsen Ratings released an analysis showing a correlation between live-tweeting during TV and having a larger, more engaged audience.The data illustrated that 19 million people in the U.S. composed 263 million tweets about live TV in the second quarter of 2013.Social TV is still in the early days but with television as the home to coveted big dollar ads and social media as the venue for audience amplification and engagement, this could be the beginning of a long and beautiful relationship.

Milktape Is a Modern-Day Mixtape for Music Lovers

Product Name: Milktape

Price: $15

Who would like this?: Hopeless romantics, significant others, high school crushes and BFFs

      "I made you a mixtape" is a phrase you probably haven't heard since 1992. Even burning CDs is passé in the era of Spotify. But somehow, sharing a playlist with the click of a mouse just doesn’t pack the same romantic punch as an actual, physical gift. Let's face it, nobody is going to blush like a schoolgirl over a file shared on Dropbox.

Awaken your inner awkward teenager with Milktape, USB cassette tapes that are breathing life into the romantic (albeit antiquated) tradition of exchanging mixtape cassettes with loved ones. Milktape adds a 21st century twist to the gesture by hiding a pop-out USB drive within an iconic cassette case, enabling users to upload 128 megabytes to the device (or approximately 15 songs).

Ladies and gentlemen — this is a great way to step up your game during the holiday season

Milktape is customizable –- drag and drop your favorite tunes onto the drive, eject the device, and then decorate the blank label, case and stickers any way you choose (leave it blank, bust out the Sharpies or simply scribble down the song titles).

Playlist Ideas

Need a few ideas for the perfect Milktape playlist? From sappy to laugh-out-loud, here are a few theme suggestions to boost your creativity:

SEE ALSO: How Spotify Engineered the New Music Economy

1. 'Tis the Season — Christmas carols/seasonal playlists

2. Love Through the Ages — love songs through the years

3. Old Time Rock & Roll — old-school classic rock

4. Drive — great road trip songs (perfect for anyone traveling over the holidays)

5. Year in Review (in Music) — best or top songs from 2013 (or year you met or married)

6. Country Classics — nothing says romance like a sappy country song

7. All-Time Faves — share your all-time favorite album or jams

8. Classically — exude classiness with a few classical tracks

9. Best Of — personal favorite artist compilations

10. Winter Weather — rainy (or snowy) day playlist

11. Pump It Up — party playlist (or a workout playlist for your gym buddy)

12. The Drop — different versions of one EDM beat or song (or just various house songs)

13. LIVE from... — compilation of live songs from a show attended together

14. By Candlelight — songs for a romantic evening

15. Guilty Pleasures – songs you’d never publicly admit to listening to (on repeat, obviously)

16. I Love the ‘90s — or ‘80s, or ’70s, etc.

17. Cash & Cline — Johnny and Patsy

18. LOL — favorite comedy standup sketches

19. Desert Island — the 15 tracks you'd listen to if stranded

20. Exclusively Acoustic -– acoustic versions of favorite tracks

For the musically inclined, recording your own versions of popular songs (or, depending on your level of ambition, original tunes) is a surefire way to give a one-of-a-kind gift. Fellas, here’s your chance to make up for last year's oh-so-thoughtful “as seen on TV” eyebrow-waxing kit.

Bands, agencies or organizations looking for more customization (or to buy in bulk), check outUSBtape, Milktape's sister company.

What would you put on your playlist, or what songs would you hope to hear on a Milktape made for you?

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments. :)