Per last Wednesday's writeup on Google's unveiling of "Ice Cream Sandwich" Android 4, which embeds both facial detection and recognition facilities, I've subsequently come across some additional details which I thought would be of interest to you:
- AnandTech published a solid summary of the new O/S release, which it based in part on the 4.0 Highlights section of the Android SDK website
- Wired Magazine also has an excellent, detailed "Ice Cream Sandwich" writeup, including an interview with Hiroshi Lockheimer, Android Vice President of Engineering
- Ars Technica's SDK "First Look" focuses on the new face recognition APIs.
- Speaking of the SDK, it's now available for download, as a post from the Android Developer's Blog makes evident, and
- Here's something that I admittedly hadn't considered… Android's Face Unlock feature might be fooled by a photograph of a person, held in front of a smartphone or tablet's front-facing camera. Whether this is actually the case or not is unclear; well-known Google employee Tim Bray initially indicated "nope", but two days later, this is what an unnamed Google spokesperson supposedly told SlashGear:
“[Face Unlock] will only get better” we were told by a Google representative when we questioned the potential for fooling the system with a still image. Using a photograph to unofficially log in “might work” they conceded, but only because the technology is still relatively young.
