Daily Headers: May 13, 2009

Facial recognition gates trialled at Stansted Airport
Saffron Walder Reporter

• Facial recognition gates are being trialed at Stansted Airport in a bid to cut queues and improve border security. The facial recognition gates work by using scanners to compare the faces of passengers to their biometric passports.
• The gates can be used by any British or European passenger who has a new e-passport with an electronic chip.
• The system measures points on a person's face and compares them with the digital passport photograph. People who have changed their appearance since their passport pictures were taken will not pose problems, because the system will still be able to compare them accurately.
• Let's hope Stansted gets it right and isn't forced to downgrade matching thresholds like Manchester Airport allegedly did.

Robot teacher conducts first class in Tokyo school
Telegraph UK
Danielle Demetriou

• Saya, the female humanoid robot that I mentioned about a month ago, taught a science and technology lesson to a class of 10-year-old pupils at Kudan Elementary School in Tokyo.
• While Saya's creator Professor Hiroshi Kobayashi said the robot's main purpose was to highlight the joys of technology to children, he also said it would benefit schools suffering from a shortage of human teachers.

Brain scanning may be used in security checks
Guardian UK
Owen Bowcott

• Distinctive brain patterns could become the latest subject of biometric scanning after EU researchers successfully tested technology to verify ­identities for security checks.
• The experiments, which also examined the potential of heart rhythms to authenticate individuals, were conducted under an EU-funded inquiry into biometric systems that could be deployed at airports, borders and in sensitive locations to screen out terrorist suspects.
• The Foreign Office plans to spend up to £15M on fixed and mobile security devices that use methods including "facial recognition (two and/or three dimensional), fingerprint recognition, iris recognition and vein imaging palm recognition".