FaceID – face recognition door access system

Biometric security access system that involves fingerprints and retinas scanning is out. The latest technology is to deal with scanning your entire face, which is definitely much more secure as no one will be able to easily duplicate your face.


Here comes the FaceID, a face recognition dock access system, that allows you to unlock your door using your face. The FaceID is able to store up to 500 faces in its database. It has a pair of cameras that capture the 3D image of your face and then uses face detection algorithm to match those faces in the database.

The 3D image recognition system also makes it hard for anyone simply uses a photo to deceive the system. It also works in dim or low-lighting conditions, which shouldn’t be a problem for those who always get home late. The system is available and can be purchased from ChinaVasion, but the price tag of $447 may put many of you off. It’s also suitable for offices, can be replacement for card systems as it also takes care of time attendance.

Please note the FaceID does not come with an electronic door lock, so you have to pair it up with one. It should be a reliable system to safeguard your home and claims to have a margin of error of 0.0001%. The very little percentage of error could probably be caused by your twin brother who has face closely resembles yours.

Apple Using Google To Dampen Windows 7 Hype

Apple is digging deep into its bag of marketing tricks in a bid to deflect some of the buzz around Windows 7, and it's doing so with the assistance of Google.

On Monday, Google search queries on the terms "Windows 7 download" and " Windows 7 upgrade" were returning surreptitious sponsored links for Apple.

The sponsored links contain messages that are intended to steer users away from Windows 7 and into the comforting arms of Apple products. "Thinking of Upgrading? Avoid Windows 7 headaches. Make the switch to Mac. It's easy," reads one message.

"If you have to upgrade, make the ultimate upgrade. Switch to Mac," reads another.

Apple didn't respond to an email request for comment on the Google ads, so it's unclear how much it's spending to steer Web searchers away from Windows 7. However, given the positive reviews and launch of Windows 7, Apple's marketing teams are probably headed back to the drawing board to devise new angles of attack that don't involve Windows Vista.

At Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in June, Bertrand Serlet, senior vice president of software engineering at Apple, called Windows 7 "just another version of Vista" that suffers from the same problems. "Microsoft has dug quite a hole for themselves with Vista, and now they're trying to get out of it with Windows 7," Serlet told attendees at WWDC. 

Apple isn't the first Microsoft rival to target Windows 7 with timed news releases. Last month, Salesforce.com issued a couple of snarky statements, attributed to CEO Marc Benioff and Bruce Francis, vice president of corporate strategy, which ridiculed Microsoft's claims that Windows 7 is more stable than Vista.

Google, meanwhile, has plenty of motivation to take part in Apple's Windows 7 campaign. Microsoft, in promoting its Bing search engine, has been poking fun at Google's keyword advertising model and trying to make the case that search engines today are 'broken' and in need of fixing.

Google has been running billboards that call out the difficulties of using Microsoft Office, so it's hard to imagine that it wouldn't be eager to help Apple take a few shots at Windows 7 as well. Whether this increased marketing activity from IT vendors is an indication of an improving economy is anyone's guess.

Microsoft Exec Backs Off Windows 7 'Hack' Comment

A Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) executive whose pointed comments on Windows 7 upgrades have irked Microsoft bloggers has apologized. Well, in a roundabout sort of way, that is.

In a Monday blog post, Eric Ligman, global partner experience lead in Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Group, said his now-infamous blog post titled "Regardless of what any hack says, a Windows 7 upgrade is an upgrade" wasn't aimed at Microsoft bloggers, but at technical workarounds that make it possible to clean install Windows 7 using upgrade media.

"So for anyone out there thinking my post was trying to 'make an example' of someone as a 'hack' or that I was calling someone specifically a 'hack,' sorry to disappoint you," Ligman wrote in the blog post.

For the past several months, Windows 7 testers have been asking Microsoft for technical details on Windows 7 upgrades but the company hasn't responded. So some Microsoft bloggers have developed workarounds for clean installing Windows 7 using upgrade media, something Microsoft says is illegal if a machine doesn't have an existing version of Windows installed.

Ligman, as the public face of Microsoft's Byzantine software licensing program, has been particularly vocal about the consequences of using improperly licensed software, often invoking the specter of Business Software Alliance audits and other legal troubles.

Some media reports have assumed Ligman's "hack" reference was to Paul Thurrott of the Supersite For Windows blog, who published details on the Windows 7 upgrade workaround last week. Ed Bott, another noted Microsoft blogger, has also called out Microsoft over the issue. So have dozens of posters who've left comments on Ligman's Microsoft SMB Community blog.

But Ligman insists he wasn't using the term "hack" in a pejorative sense. "There appears to be a lot of reading through 'pre-determined conclusion' lenses," Ligman wrote in the blog post.

Although Ligman is downplaying the issue, Thurrott sees it as an example of Microsoft's heavy-handed approach to software licensing and its tendency to punish its body of customers for the actions of a few software pirates.

"This is very much about how Microsoft communicates with his customers, and while Ligman tries to make the case that Microsoft cares very much about its customers, this little episode is telling them otherwise," Thurrott wrote in a Monday blog post .

The good news is that the Windows 7 upgrade kerfluffle has led to a great deal of feedback that Ligman says he has shared with higher-ups.

"I have submitted your various comments on this topic to the appropriate people for that topic and will be happy (believe me) to post the exact link to where you should go for this information as soon as I hear back," Ligman wrote.

iPhone Reception In China Less Than Stellar

The iPhone was officially released in China on the China Unicom network October 30th. They had a big launch party but reception for the device itself was considered tepid compared with other iPhone launches in other countries around the world.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the party itself was a big success with lots of attendees, but there was no sellout of devices. As of last night, you could walk into a China Unicom store and pick one up. 

Why was it not the huge success it has been at other launches? Well, it is possible they had enough inventory on hand to meet the typically high demand and then some, but I doubt that is the case. I think Apple likes to run out of devices. It drives buzz around the product. Plus, there were no long lines. In fact, the article says there were no lines in the Apple Beijing store. I don't care where you are, anytime you have more than 3 people in a store to buy a cell phone, you have instant lines because the only thing more time consuming than buying a phone and activating it is buying a house.

Apparently there are a lot of gray-market devices already in China. The original iPhone came out in 2007 and not everyone waited two and a half years to get theirs. This would cause demand to be lower on a launch day as well. Apple may be falling prey to what impacts so many other industries in China. The gray-market phones are selling for less than what China Unicom charges. Anyone that has done business in or with China knows the gray-market there is well established and can impact legitimate business.

One final tidbit that just blew my mind is that the WiFi radio has been disabled by China Unicom. This was done in order to comply with Chinese law. Most of us have no idea how it is to live under a government that attempts to control what you see to such a high degree. The internet is supposed to make information available to everyone everywhere, but China spends an inordinate amount of time and resources in filtering that data for its users. That's a shame. Maybe China should spend more time on protecting the intellectual property rights of companies doing business there rather than the thoughts of its citizens

Apple Faces iPhone Hurdles In China

Apple (NSDQ:AAPL)'s iPhone is off to a slow start in China, much to the chagrin of the country's No. 2 mobile carrier, China Unicom, which is hoping to get an iPhone boost much like other carriers round the world.

Many Beijing stores still had iPhones in stock Sunday night, according to The Wall Street Journal, and crowds were more subdued when compared to the mania that led to sold-out locations when the Apple device was introduced in the U.S. and Japan.

Apple signed a three-year deal with China Unicom on Aug. 28 to sell the iPhone in China, hoping to tap into China's 710 million mobile phone users. At that time, the carrier said it planned to grow through more services and place more emphasis on 3G business. Last week, the company said its profit fell in the third quarter as it looks to build the expensive 3G networks using the WCDMA standard to support the iPhone.

Apple and China Unicom also face the challenge of cost for the iPhone, reportedly $750 to $1,000 through the companies, while more than 2 million iPhones have been brought into China for much less from other countries, according to the Journal.

Also hampering Apple's efforts in China is the fact that its initial offering won't include Wi-Fi features, according to the Shanghai Daily.

In addition, China Unicom last week released a survey of its WCDMA signal quality, which showed that only 30 cities now meet the company's ideal standards. Nearly as many have average (17 cities) or poor (11 cities) quality, according to Tencent Tech, a media company for China's 3G market.

Dubai firm in hot water over San Francisco oil spill

San Francisco: Clean-up crews working on the aftermath of Friday's oil spill in San Francisco Bay reported significant progress Sunday.
Some 422 gallons of oil spilled onto the deck of the Panamanian-flagged Dubai Star and into the water after a fuel line ruptured Friday during a fuel transfer, Coast Guard spokeswoman Sherri Eng said.
The ship in question, the 50,000 dwt Dubai Star, owned by Emirates Trading Agency is likely to be at the centre of a long drawn out, highly expensive investigation and fine, just like the Cosco Busan incident in the same city in 2007.
Clean up crews now think most of the oil is on the shoreline and not in the water, but they still have plenty of work to do.
The environmental toll is something they are still measuring. Crews say at least ten birds have died. They are almost positive there will be more.
Some of the oiled birds were at the Wildlife Care and Education Center in Fairfield Sunday. They take them there after they stabilize them at the scene where they were found. So far, they have found 30 live birds, most of them along the Alameda shoreline.
"If you do see any live animals that are found to be in distress or if you see any oil on beaches, do not approach the animals or the beach to try to engage in the oil," Josh Nicholas with the Department of Fish and Game said Sunday. "Doing so may further cause harm to the wildlife by scaring the animals back into the water and making any type of recovery for those animals even harder."
An error while refulling the Dubai Star led to more than 400 gallons of oil spilled Friday, creating an oil sheen about two miles long and 200 yards wide. Officials say there was a mechanical failure, although they are still investigating exactly what happened.

Chinese iPhone has grey market to contend with

By most accounts, the iPhone's debut in China has been lackluster. Figures at China's only Apple Store in Mainland China are incredibly bad. They sold 10 on Saturday and only one on Sunday. The Apple Store Manager hopes that sales pick up during the week.

This, to a nation of 1.3 billion people and almost 800 million mobile users. In fact, China's leading mobile carrier has more subscribers than the US has citizens.

What's the problem?

Apple has been selling Gray Market iPhones to the Chinese through the open iPhone sales in HongKong.

What's more, these Gray iPhones are better equipped than the official Apple ones. The official iPhones aren't allowed to have Wifi in China so that's been stripped (ironically the ability to have Wifi was reinstated, it will just take Apple a long time to start building these again).

The gray market iPhones are also cheaper and available in most neighboring countries as well. Finally, once they buy one, users can switch networks at their leisure, the unlocked iPhones can switch networks based on the Simcard installed

So Apple might already have finally met its match in when it comes to Chinese competition...from other iPhones.