In today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, security and convenience often find themselves on opposite ends of the spectrum. NEC’s Face/Iris Multimodal Biometric Authentication wants to bridge this gap by offering an authentication system that excels in both aspects. Utilizing the world’s top-rated facial and iris recognition technologies, this innovative system sets new benchmarks in secure and convenient identification.
The unique aspect of NEC’s technology is its ability to integrate three sources of biometric information: the face and the irises of both eyes. The system combines these elements using a proprietary algorithm to offer unrivaled authentication accuracy.
NEC’s system does not compromise security since each source is often used as a standalone security measure, so compounding them seems even stricter. Nec says it employs the highest-rated facial and iris recognition technologies to ensure reliable authentication. Moreover, it adds an extra layer of security by using both the face and irises as biometric markers. To further enhance its robustness, the system includes features that block impersonation attempts using printed photos or other visual representations.
Convenience is another key strength of this technology. The camera automatically adjusts its position based on the user’s height and stance, making the experience stress-free. The system performs reliably even when the user is wearing face-covering items such as masks, goggles, or hats. The authentication process is hands-free, ensuring hygiene and enabling use in scenarios where the user’s hands may be occupied.
The dual advantages of high security and user-friendliness make this system extremely versatile. It is an excellent fit for controlling access to areas and facilities requiring stringent identification measures. The technology is also ideal for authenticating large volumes of payments. Given its ability to authenticate individuals even when wearing personal protective equipment (masks), the system is particularly useful in healthcare and industrial settings.
As the world grapples with the challenges of climate change and seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, solar power generation is an essential solution. Toshiba has been working hard on its Cu2O tandem solar cells and film-type perovskite solar cells as part of its renewable energy solutions. These innovations are not only efficient but also versatile, offering exciting prospects for large-scale power generation in diverse settings.
Cu2O Tandem Solar Cells: All About Efficiency
Cu2O (copper suboxide) tandem solar cells aim to improve overall power generation efficiency by stacking two solar cells on top of each other. The top cell is a transmission-type Cu2O cell, and the bottom cell is a Si (silicon) cell; both generate power. This stacked configuration allows these cells to be highly efficient, low-cost, and reliable.
A particularly promising application of these tandem solar cells is in electric mobility vehicles such as electric cars (EVs). The cells have the potential to supply large amounts of power in a compact form factor, making them ideal for vehicles with limited space. In the near future, EVs equipped with these cells could be powered for 30 to 50 km without recharging, covering the daily driving distance of a typical short-distance user when recharged by sunlight for a day.
Film-type Perovskite Solar Cells: Flexible and Lightweight
Film-type perovskite solar cells offer a solution for renewable energy generation in urban areas where conventional Si solar cells are challenging to install due to weight and rigidity constraints. These cells are lightweight, thin and can be installed on curved surfaces such as low-load-bearing roofs and walls.
This opens up the possibility for large-scale power generation in urban areas through a “local production for local consumption” model, utilizing the limited sunlight that falls on densely populated regions.
Overcoming Challenges: Power Conversion Efficiency
While polymer film-type perovskite solar cells offer numerous advantages, they have historically suffered from lower power conversion efficiency compared to silicon modules. Toshiba has tackled this problem head-on by developing a new one-step meniscus coating method. This approach has resulted in a power conversion efficiency of 15.1% for a polymer film-type perovskite solar cell, which Toshiba says is the world’s highest value for a cell of this type at 703 square-cm.
The coating process is also significantly faster than conventional methods, making mass production more efficient and bringing the technology closer to practical application.
Broad Applications and Future Prospects
Toshiba’s innovations in solar technology could have far-reaching implications. If perovskite solar cells were installed on the rooftops across Tokyo, they could cover a non-negligible amount of electricity the city consumes.
These cells also offer promising applications in agriculture. Their transparency can be controlled, making them suitable for use as greenhouse covers. This would allow for capturing the appropriate amount of sunlight needed for crops while generating electricity for agricultural operations.
As some societies grapple with labor shortages exacerbated by declining and aging populations, Mitsubishi’s AVATAR aspires to be a game-changing solution. Through its remote operation capabilities, AVATAR provides a platform (software and hardware) designed to make it easier for anyone to perform tasks from any location, thereby democratizing labor and potentially improving safety in hazardous work environments.
Mitsubishi thinks the AVATAR operation interface is simple and intuitive. I didn’t get to operate it, but it did look reasonably simple to get the robots to do its various tasks.
Drawing on human cognitive characteristics, the interface employs Visual Haptics technology to present force levels at remote locations as Augmented Reality (AR) images. Powered by Mitsubishi Electric’s proprietary AI technology Maisart, the system is said to learn and replicate movements automatically. This simplifies tasks like moving objects from one point to another and reduces the operator’s work.
At CEATEC 2023, Mitsubishi demonstrated the entire stack of hardware and software using a simple robot that could move around and move objects using two arms. Obviously, this demo doesn’t achieve the full AVATAR vision, but the company wanted to show tangible progress.
To make teleoperation practical and user-friendly, AVATAR relies on two core strategies:
First, simple and intuitive vision-based operation: Mobile smart devices serve as the operating interface, transmitting motion and sensory information between the operator and AVATAR. Four specific technologies have been developed to facilitate this:
Visual Haptics: Uses AR to present force haptic information at the point of contact.
Human Eye Display: Adjusts the resolution of the central and peripheral fields of view according to the task.
One-Click Operation: Allows users to control the system through simple taps on a touch panel.
Eye Contact: Creates a more natural interaction by linking a smartphone camera to an extended monitor.
Augmented Avatar Technology: This flexible system separates the “mind” and the “body” of the avatar, enabling task-specific designs and implementations. Basically, it separates intent from action.
Secondly, task operations can be broken down into sub-tasks, some of which can be automated to reduce the operator’s workload further. This step-by-step automation allows one operator to manage multiple machines simultaneously. You can think of it as macro-level operating instead of micro-managing every movement from the avatar.
If you want to learn more, I find this white paper (PDF) by Mitsubishi’s award-winning team, “Last Mile,” fascinating.
Social Implications
Beyond addressing labor shortages and safety concerns, AVATAR technology aims to solve the issue of uneven population distribution. It gives individuals the freedom to live and work wherever they prefer, thus creating a more balanced distribution of the working population. By the way, the movie Surrogates was based on a similar idea.
This vision of the future will require time and more research to take shape as envisioned, however, it will probably lead to significant learning and lessons for future designs.
Discord is introducing new safeguards to protect young users. On Thursday, the company announced Teen Safety Assist. The rollout will happen in the coming weeks and consists of two features: Automated alerts and content filters.
Moving forward, when a user a teen hasn’t chatted with before sends a direct message, Discord will display a safety alert if the platform’s automated systems suspect the teen’s safety could be at risk. The prompt will nudge the young person to reconsider if they want to respond to the message, and point them to the app’s block feature and related safety tips.
By default, Discord will now also automatically blur potentially sensitive images from a teen’s friends. Young people can disable the feature through an option in Discord’s settings menu. Adults, meanwhile, can enable the filters for themselves, if they want the additional protections.
The introduction of Teen Safety Assist comes amid increased scrutiny of Discord’s efforts to limit the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and protect young users from predatory adults. In June, NBC Newsidentified 35 cases over a period of six years where adults had allegedly used the platform to kidnap, groom or sexually assault minors. The outlet also found 165 cases where authorities were prosecuting adults for sharing CSAM over Discord or allegedly using the platform to extort young users into sending sexual images of themselves.
In the aftermath of the report, Discord banned teen dating servers and changed its safety policies to ban the sharing of AI-generated CSAM. It also announced new rules explicitly prohibiting any other kind of text or media content that sexualizes children. At the same time, the company introduced Family Center, a dashboard for parents and guardians to keep track of what their teens are doing on Discord.
Discord
“Teens are still in the process of learning about themselves and what it means to be online, and our new safety features are rooted in providing them with agency on the platform, to give them ways to learn and grow in safe and age-appropriate online spaces,” said Savannah Badalich, senior director of policy at Discord. “These newest features are part of an ongoing, multi-year effort to continually evolve and advance safety on Discord.”
At the same time, Discord is introducing a new warning system for people who violate its policies. Outside of incidents involving the most “extreme” violations, the company is moving away from permanent bans. It’s doing so under the belief that most users will choose to be better online citizens given the chance and proper guidance.
In practice, the system will notify a person when they’ve violated one or more of Discord’s policies and detail the restrictions on their account. It will also link out to the company’s Terms of Service, Community Guidelines and appeal mechanism. A new “Account Standing” tab within the settings menu will allow users to see all their current and past policy violations.
“We think we’ve built the most nuanced and proportionate reporting system,” Badalich told Engadget, adding the company hopes other platforms will look to what Discord has created for inspiration related to their own enforcement efforts. “We believe people, especially teens, have the capacity to grow.”
Separately, Discord announced a slew of new features and enhancements slated to arrive either in the near future or down the line. To start, the platform’s in-app shop, which Discord began testing last month with Nitro subscribers, will soon be available to all users. The marketplace features digital items people can use to decorate their avatars and profiles. Discord will offer store discounts to Nitro members, as part of a new perk for signing up.
Discord
This week, the company will also start a broad roll-out of a feature called Remix. It allows users to edit an image directly within Discord’s mobile app and share it with their friends and servers. The company spent much of the last year improving its Android and iOS clients. One recent update saw it improve app launch times on both platforms. In the near future, Discord says people can expect a new “Midnight” dark mode the company claims reduces battery consumption on devices with OLED screens, more functional notification tabs and a new search feature for the settings menu to make it easier to find the exact option you’re looking to tweak.
Last but not least, the company says it will begin rolling out Premium App Subscriptions to eligible developers in the UK and Europe, following a launch that began in the US a few weeks ago. On the subject of third-party apps, bots and plugins, the company said it’s in the process of exploring how to make those accessible across nearly every part of Discord. It provided few details on the effort, but said the goal is to allow people to access their favorite apps and bots without those experiences being restricted to select servers.
“We’re experimenting with a few different things, but the goal is for developers to reach more people with the awesome experience they’re building. For users, we don’t want them to be gated from having these custom experiences at their fingertips,” Cherry Park, director of product marketing at Discord, told Engadget. “In terms of the way we architecture and build it, there are a couple of solutions. Some are easier, some are more difficult, and you’re going to see us experiment with a few of them over the next few quarters.”
Discord promised to share more about its efforts around app portability in the near future. In the meantime, Nitro subscribers will get a chance to test new features before they become available to the public.
Update, October 20, 2023, 11:20 AM ET: This story has been updated to note that these feature are rolling out in the coming weeks, not this week as the post originally said. We also removed a mention that Discord would automatically delete potentially sensitive content from strangers. This was originally part of a briefing we received on the new features, but it was not included in the final release.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/discords-latest-teen-safety-blitz-starts-with-content-filters-and-automated-warnings-150031569.html?src=rss
Railway systems are crucial for transporting goods and people in numerous countries, and Japan has been at the forefront of rail technology for decades. However, maintaining railway tracks and equipment remains a significant challenge when your rail system is so developed.
Hitachi aims to revolutionize maintenance operations by leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) and metaverse technologies. We explored Hitachi’s approach to railway maintenance, which was recently showcased at CEATEC 2023.
Hitachi is moving beyond the traditional parameters of 3D virtual space to create a seamless information-sharing environment. This virtual space facilitates consensus building (a very important concept in Japan) and technology transfer in railway maintenance. One of Hitachi’s strengths lies in combining AI and inspection data—comprising both images and measurements.
How It Works
Data Collection: Initially, a train equipped with a front-facing camera runs on the tracks to collect data in their normal condition.
Comparative Analysis: As equipment wears out over time—like the corrosion of sleepers placed under the rails—a train with a camera captures the affected areas during subsequent runs.
AI Detection: The AI algorithms compare images from the initial and later runs to automatically detect abnormalities, such as corrosion, or even rare conditions like rails emitting smoke.
Metaverse Integration: These detected abnormalities are then reproduced in a metaverse—a virtual space—where the tracks are color-coded. Green signifies a normal condition, and red indicates areas that require maintenance.
The advantages of Hitachi’s technology are multi-faceted. For one, maintenance crews can rapidly identify which tracks require attention, thereby speeding up the process of diagnosis and repair.
In addition to speeding up identification, the metaverse is a valuable educational and training tool. New workers can gain “hands-on experience” dealing with various abnormal conditions that are generally difficult to simulate in a real-world setting. Lastly, the technology addresses some of the limitations of physical infrastructure.
While it may not be feasible to color-code tracks in the real world for easy identification of issues, this limitation is elegantly sidestepped in the metaverse’s virtual environment. Together, these benefits contribute to a more efficient and safer railway maintenance operation.
At CEATEC, Hitachi showcased the experience and value of this technology in transforming railway maintenance. I was most interested in the training potential as it is one of the best use cases for virtual spaces. Some things must be “lived” to be understood, and using 3D spaces is the most cost-efficient way to gain a realistic experience.
Hitachi’s integration of AI and metaverse technologies offers a promising approach to tackling the complexities and sheer size of railway equipment maintenance. By enabling quick identification of problematic areas and serving as an effective training tool, this technology stands to improve the efficiency and safety of railway operations, especially in a time when there’s a shortage of professional manpower. You can learn more by reading this insightful interview I found online.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
