Tag Archives: technology

Face It, Gov’t Rushing Biometrics

Machines at an airport fail face-recognition test

Random tests of facial-recognition technology at a Florida airport this spring show that it failed to identify even half of the employees who went through screening. The American Civil Liberties Union released the results of the first four weeks of an eight-week study at Palm Beach International Airport. According to the group, the system made a match only 455 out of 958 times that volunteers who had their faces recorded digitally in the computer system went through it.

What’s Next, Flying Winnebagos?

Nasa trawls the web for spares

"Nasa admits it trawls web auctions for obsolete components for use in shuttle launches. Scientists routinely check eBay and Yahoo for old computer parts.They say a stockpile is needed to keep old support systems running. It recently bought a consignment of 1980s medical equipment to re-use some antique Intel processors"

The Republic of the Web

"The web continues to grow at staggering rates. Automated search engines are increasingly unable to turn up useful results to search queries. The small paid editorial staffs at commercial directory sites can’t keep up with submissions, and the quality and comprehensiveness of their directories has suffered. Link rot is setting in and they can’t keep pace with the growth of the Internet."

"Instead of fighting the explosive growth of the Internet, the Open Directory provides the means for the Internet to organize itself. As the Internet grows, so do the number of net-citizens. These citizens can each organize a small portion of the web and present it back to the rest of the population, culling out the bad and useless and keeping only the best content."

About the Open Directory Project