IHF Roundup: Facial Recognition Infiltrates Household Items, Facial Scanners Find the Bar Scene & Other Top Headlines This Week

Been a busy week of travel for me -- great chance to get caught up on the news of the world. Seems that every week, new ideas are being brought to the table in terms of where surveillance systems are being deployed and for what reasons -- Korea's most recent biometric initiative, for example. Take a look at other stories from around the world!

Facial recognition technologies are continuing to take online photo programs by storm. Announced this week, Flickr users can now import their photos to Polar Rose. This Swedish start-up identifies individual faces and names show up next to faces in the photos once the user has identified the faces based on the matching of 3D models. Yes, Google Picasa and Apple's iPhoto already do something similar to this, but Flickr's version of this technique demonstrates the depth of the technology's infiltration into popular culture and its growing momentum. Plus, these new improvements will save hours of time individually marking faces to names. I'm thrilled that Facebook might be next to jump onboard with Faces.com (still in alpha)!

Facial recognition isn't only on your computer, but also in your bathroom. Introduced this week, the SmartFaucet is capable of facial recognition to enable tempered water to avoid scalding hot temperatures -- and even enable users to access email, see weather predictions and update calendar events -- all while washing your hands! Although, I'm not quite sure wet skin and electronics mix?

And from faucet to front row at your favorite club, a Melbourne nightclub recently hit headlines with its new facial recognition deployment, the world's first nightclub installation. With Chasers nightclub already equipped with metal detectors, this new software is meant to fight violence common at the venue and keep out troublemakers. According to the article, "patrons' faces are scanned by a camera and the image and driver's license details are stored on a computer for 28 days." Also, police have access to the biometric data should an incident occur -- interesting collaboration between public and private institutions to keep the drinks flowing and glass un-shattered. I like it.

As I wrote yesterday, airports are well on their way to creating a common security system across the entire US aviation community -- and Singaporean IT is jumping onboard as well. While currently operating five individuals databases, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) will be creating the 'Bio-Hub' to integrate all facial and fingerprint images for Singaporeans, permanent residents and foreigners. Plans are also in the works, "to introduce a non-intrusive facial capture system at checkpoints, to deter imposters from finding their way into the country." Interesting initiative. Be interested to see if any other countries lobby for similar projects.