• Large step for facial recognition

    Smile, you’re on Candid Camera. AliPay (formerly part of Alibaba, has 300 million customers for its mobile device payment service. This compares with one million ApplePay users. They recently demonstrated a beta of its facial recognition software. Basically, you point your smartphone at your face and it verifies that you are the owner before making a payment.

    The fear, of course, is that one day casinos will see you coming before you get near a table. That day is still a ways off, IMO. But, technology inexorably evolves, making our lives both easier and harder.

    http://www.computerworld.com/article...345e28b185a56b

    Comments 16 Comments
    1. Jet's Avatar
      Jet -
      Even if the technology gets further advanced and is decent, it won't matter because casino margins are already getting smaller and smaller. They won't spend the money on facial recognition software. The only casinos spending money on such a thing will be the ones that are already paranoid and you can't play at anyways.
    1. Norm's Avatar
      Norm -
      Quote Originally Posted by Jet View Post
      They won't spend the money on facial recognition software.
      Just ordered a new PC last week. Compared to my last one, purchased four years ago, it has twice the RAM, twice the video memory, twice the SSD disk space, twice the HDD disk space, faster video card, faster CPU, faster SSD, water cooling, and cost $700 less. At this point, I still think facial recopgnotion is an immature science. But, ....
    1. mofungoo's Avatar
      mofungoo -
      FR works well in a straight on situation like a mug shot, but the best you can do with an off angle shot is to give a list of possible hits. It is then up to a human operator to compare them with the subject in question. Sometimes the list of possibles is quite long.
    1. Aslan's Avatar
      Aslan -
      But we can all agree the technology is getting better and better. Eventually.... And with better and better cameras and zoom features the right angle becomes easier and easier to get.

      To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

      Casinos may pay their help poorly but they often pull out all the plugs when it comes to the latest technology, plus the fact that Norm pointed out that technology is cheaper and cheaper. How many city blocks would one T of storage have taken back in 1950 and at what phenomenal cost?
    1. Norm's Avatar
      Norm -
      Quote Originally Posted by Aslan View Post
      How many city blocks would one T of storage have taken back in 1950 and at what phenomenal cost?
      There wasn't that much storage in the world even in 1960. Even in 1970 I believe. First computer I used was an IBM 1620 in 1965. Here the memory unit. Six feet wide, held 40,000 digits. http://t-lcarchive.org/index.php?opt...156&Itemid=498
    1. Three's Avatar
      Three -
      Do you remember the punch cards used for input and programming for those behemoth dinosaurs? I remember being the "intern" and having to work with the cards when I was in high school. The job didn't pay much but I got to work with some of the brightest minds of the time. All PHD's and some the best in their field of study. There were even some of the German scientists working for the place. They did all kinds of stuff but nuclear development (mostly energy but also weapons) and aerospace is what they were known for. It was so long ago I can't even remember much of the details. The computer room was almost a whole floor of the building and was home to 1 computer, no maybe it was 2 computers. They had an old IBM and a newer Hewlett Packard if I remember right. Th IBM took up most of the space. Now calculators you hold in your hand have more power.
    1. Norm's Avatar
      Norm -
      The cards were called IBM 5081's. I think I have a few somewhere. But, I started with paper tape, which was much worse as you could change one card in a deck of cards.
    1. Aslan's Avatar
      Aslan -
      My wife was a COBOL programmer and teacher back in the seventies. I think they still had punch cards. lI don't think government ever got completely away from COBOL and FORTRAN even with all these advances in programming languages, because so many of its records were stored in those formats. Speaking of old technology, I'll bet some of you remember the old mimeograph machines that predated the Xerox copier. We should have a thread called, Remember When. That would include remembering when gambling experts were quick to discredit card counting or any other method of beating blackjack and you had to worry more about casinos cheating you, than casinos had to worry about you cheating them. .
    1. Bodarc's Avatar
      Bodarc -
      The first fax machine I ever saw required you to dial the number and then place the handset into a cradle. It was a great improvement since we could receive daily reports etc from other locations. I forget exactly what it cost but I know it was several thousand dollars.

      The first portable computer I ever bought was a Zenith and it was the size of a small suitcase and probably weighed 30 pounds. It even had 2 floppy disk drives, one for your program and one to store the data.
    1. Aslan's Avatar
      Aslan -
      The first computer I had was a Trash 80? from Radio Shack which I bought for almost nothing from a guy but then returned it to the store because he had stolen it. The second computer I had was a TI-99A? which I think cost $200 and boasted 16KB expandable to 32KB. I wrote my first program which was a space ship you could shoot down by entering the correct coordinates. It took all of its expanded memory to write that program.
    1. Stealth's Avatar
      Stealth -
      I do not believe you will see the casino make a mad rush for new technology but if you follow the depreciation schedules I do think they will upgrade when capital improvements are made. I am almost certain the upgrades to many of the downtown casinos included improved surveillance. Anytime they have big new capital budgets I expect they upgrade. I like, Norm, bought a new computer and it just recognizes me, no password required to get in. Camera comes on, I align myself and bingo. It's coming....................
    1. Stealth's Avatar
      Stealth -
      Did lot's of programming on IBM 360 multiple models in Assembler, Cobol, Fortran, PL/I. Developed some large banking systems with those.
      Have no idea if any of that stuff is still around.
    1. Aslan's Avatar
      Aslan -
      Quote Originally Posted by Stealth View Post
      Did lot's of programming on IBM 360 multiple models in Assembler, Cobol, Fortran, PL/I. Developed some large banking systems with those.
      Have no idea if any of that stuff is still around.
      THere was a big push to convert all the government systems over to the newer and more advanced languages, but I don't know that they ever accomplished it entirely. I remember one initiative where they wanted to convert the witness protection program to a modern language and provide Internet access. My friend worked for the US Marshall Service at the time and blew a fuse over that attempt to modernize. Can you imagine if the more than 20,000 people protected by that program were suddenly vulnerable to hackers? I certainly hope that initiative has never seen the light of day. But you know the routine... "This new language is completely safe..." "No one will be able to violate our system, what with all the safeguards we will have built into it..." "Our program is hacker-proof..." "We propose a state-of-the-art system with access by those who need it [aka the Mafia, organized crime, and recreational hackers]" Blah, blah, blah.... blah, blah....
    1. Norm's Avatar
      Norm -
      Quote Originally Posted by Stealth View Post
      Did lot's of programming on IBM 360 multiple models
      I modified most of the operating systems and job entry systems of the 360/370: PCP, MFT, MFT-II, MVT, VS1, VS2, DOS/360, VSE, ASP, HASP, JES, JES2, JES3. All that stuff's gone.
    1. Aslan's Avatar
      Aslan -
      I wonder how long before the modifications are gone, too?
    1. Stealth's Avatar
      Stealth -
      Quote Originally Posted by Jet View Post
      Even if the technology gets further advanced and is decent, it won't matter because casino margins are already getting smaller and smaller. They won't spend the money on facial recognition software. The only casinos spending money on such a thing will be the ones that are already paranoid and you can't play at anyways.
      The coming issue is that as the technology improves the new casinos will have improved surveillance and the old casinos will update when they have depreciated the existing stuff or it breaks. Already happening to some degree in downtown vegas with some of the retreads.

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