In these days of intensified focus on accurate biometrics, the question may be asked: ‘Is it possible to ID an individual by their armpit odour – even if they use deodorant?’ Researchers Chatchawal Wongchoosuk, Mario Lutz and Teerakiat Kerdcharoen from Mahidol University, Bangkok, have made preliminary progress in this field. Their paper ‘Detection and Classification […]
Tag: biometrics
Computerised gender classification (part 1: eyebrows)
Can you tell a person’s gender from just a glimpse of their eyebrows? Could a computerised system do the same? To find out, a project was undertaken by Yujie Dong (of the Holcombe Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Clemson University) and Damon L. Woodard (now at the Biometrics and Pattern Recognition Lab, University of […]
The destructive effect of spectacle handles
This illustration demonstrates “the destructive effect of spectacle handles” for computer programs designed to automatically detect and measure the shape of a person’s ear. From one point of view, this shows that you are acting unfairly if you wear eyeglasses to an airport or bank or any other place where you are likely to be […]
Tongue ID
[sometimes it seems as though] As soon a new biometric security technology is developed, someone will find a way to bypass it. (see, for example, Progress in Fake-Finger Thwarting Improbable Research, April 16th, 2010). Steps towards implementing so-called ‘liveness detection’ mechanisms, which detect inert fakes, have helped. But in an ideal world, biometricians would like […]