READING

Read the article and tick (ü) A, B, or C.

Face recognition

We now upload over four billion photos a month onto Facebook, and anyone who uses the site is familiar with the idea of face recognition software, which can tell you who is (or might be) in your photo.

Face recognition is being used in many different areas, especially to help the police identify criminals. Computers are not able to read faces like humans can, but they can be trained to compare a face with a photo that is stored in a database. They do this by noting certain features, or, for example, measuring the distance between the eyes. A ‘smart’ surveillance system – cameras which record our movements in public spaces – has now been developed by a Japanese company which can look through 36 million faces in one second to find a matching one. Many people say they feel safer if there are cameras to protect them in public places, but others are not comfortable with the fact that so many images of us are stored in a database.

The technology is not yet perfect (people who have had plastic surgery can especially confuse the system!), but it is now often preferred to other forms of conventional identification. This is partly because it can be used without us knowing. Face recognition is being improved all the time. Other new technology has been designed which can predict how a face might look as it gets older or which can fill in missing parts of an image. It can even identify someone from video taken in very low light.

In the future, face recognition might also inspire many more good business ideas. There is already an app for smartphones to tell how many people are at a club, and the ratio of men to women. Sony has also designed a camera that waits for you to smile before it takes a picture.

Finally, facial recognition doesn’t just recognize humans now – tests have been carried out which show that individual chimpanzees can be recognized, a development that could be used to protect wildlife in the future.

Example: Face recognition in Facebook is used ___________.

A  to tell us who our friends are  c    B  to tell us who our family are  c
C  to identify people in our photos  cü

1   Every month people upload ___________ photos onto Facebook.

     A  more than four billion  c    B  36 million  c    Cfewer than four billion  c

2   It is now possible for computers to ___________.

     A  recognize faces like people can  c    B  record the differences between two images  c
C  measure the distance between two people  c

3   It takes ___________ one second to search 36 million images.

     A  a computer  c    B  a surveillance system  c    C  the police  c

4   A lot of people don’t mind cameras in public places because ___________.

     A  they feel safer  c    B  they aren’t criminals  c    C  they like being filmed  c

5   Face recognition technology ___________.

     A  is likely to make mistakes  c    B  is 100 per cent accurate  c
C  occasionally makes mistakes  c

6   One of the new kinds of technology can ___________.

     A  complete missing parts of a photo  c    B  improve how we look  c
C  make us look younger  c

7   A smartphone app can ___________ in a club.

     A  identify people  c    B  tell how much people spend  c    C  tell the number of people  c

8   The camera developed by Sony waits for people to ___________.

     A  look natural  c    B  smile  c    C  stand still  c

9   Facial recognition ___________ animals in the future.

     A  will definitely help  c    B  may be able to help  c    C  is unlikely to help  c

2   Read the article again. Mark the sentences T (true) or F (false).

Example:    Face recognition is new for Facebook users.    F  

1   The police often use face recognition to identify criminals.  ____

2   Most people are worried that photos are kept in a database.  ____

3   We don’t usually know if we are being identified by face recognition technology.  ____

4   People can be identified even in bad light.  ____

5   It’s unlikely that face recognition will be used for business in the future.  ____

6   Face recognition technology can now be used on all animals.  ____