Chernoff faces are an unusually human way of representing statistical data. Herman Chernoff, who conceived of them, died on July 6, 2026. Read an appreciation of him from the Stanford University department of statistics (where he was for many years on the faculty). We have many times celebrated the wonder and power of Chernoff faces, […]
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Face: the future — Should you take at face value a science paper that suggests that your face is the result of a “self-fulfilling prophecy process”? … Did Natalie always look like a Natalie? Or did […]
Google’s policy of effacing any human faces visible in Google Street View imagery, applies, de facto, even to faces one might not expect to be effaced. The stated purpose is “to protect the privacy of individuals”. Here’s an example from a holiday poster—showing a face-blurred individual carrying a cross—on the outer wall of a church […]
Several researchers who are not themselves clones try to gauge what the reaction of the populace might be if and when they were to encounter a gaggle of clones. Details are in this study: “The clone devaluation effect: A new uncanny phenomenon concerning facial identity,” Fumiya Yonemitsu, Kyoshiro Sasaki, Akihiko Gobara, and Yuki Yamada, PLoS […]