Programming Blog » America

MIT Researchers Read Consumers’ Faces to Make a Better Taste Test

Facebook-Web-Design — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 08:30:54 +0000

It happens all the time: Companies spend large amounts of money on focus groups and market research, only to have a new product fail when it’s introduced to the public.

Researchers at MIT are hoping to help change that, using some high-tech tools that measure the emotional reactions of people as they’re testing a new product.

Part of the problem, the researchers say, is that people have a tough time accurately describing how they feel about something.

“We know that self-reported feeling is very inaccurate,” said Rosalind Picard, an MIT professor who directs research into computing and human emotion. “We’ve measured when people say they like something, but their face is leaking all kinds of disgust.”

Prof. Picard and PhD student Hyungil Ahn haven’t finalized their research yet but hope to have it published later this year. They said they aren’t looking to subject product testers to any sort of invasive, secret tests.

“There are companies that want to read people’s feelings without people knowing, and that’s not how we work,” Prof. Picard said. Instead, they are hoping to provide tools that help people report their feelings more accurately. The idea is based on devices the MIT lab developed for autistic people, who also have difficulty accurately identifying feelings. Those devices include instruments that record people’s facial images and tell the users how often they are showing interest, confusion, agreement and so forth.

Prof. Picard said the product-testing study was spurred by requests from companies that work with their lab, a roster that includes such names as PepsiCo and Bank of America. Representatives from these companies saw reports on the autism research and mentioned that the devices could be used in product testing. Prof. Picard said Pepsi was one company that influenced the lab’s decision to conduct the research: “They said, ‘We’ve got this problem. We’re trying to make healthier products. … We test them with people, and everybody says they love it … and then it flops.’”

In addition to evaluating facial expressions, the researchers also are using instruments that measure the electrical conductance of the skin, which can help indicate interest and memorability but which also changes depending on whether a subject is stressed — something that might be helpful for testing a product like, say, potato chips. “Most of us overeat when we’re stressed,” Dr. Picard said. “It’s interesting to look at with regard to why someone might be eating more. If your customers are eating more during your test, is it due to stress or due to actually liking what they’re eating?”

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The FBI Sucks at Photoshop [PIC]

Facebook-Web-Design — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 07:49:07 +0000

The FBI this week released a “digitally-altered” image showing what Osama Bin Laden possibly looks like now he’s older.

While the FBI claims to have used “cutting edge” technology to create the image, a Spanish politician has noticed that the poster is a modified version of his campaign photo — he now finds his face in America’s most wanted list.

While on the surface it’s an amusing misstep by intelligence agencies, Gaspar Llamazares, the former leader of Spain’s United Left coalition, calls the move “shameless”. His safety is at risk, he told the BBC, and he no longer feels able to travel to America now his likeness is on a wanted poster: “Bin Laden’s safety is not threatened by this but mine certainly is”, Llamazares said.

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Left, Bin Laden in 1998; middle, the FBI image; right, Gaspar Llamazares

The FBI is quoted admitting to the error, saying that the artist found the photo on the web and didn’t know it was of a Spanish politician:

When producing age-progressed photographs, forensic artists typically select features from a database of stock reference photographs to create the new image…it appears that in this instance the forensic artist was unable to find suitable features among the reference photographs and obtained those features, in part, from a photograph he found on the internet.

The forensic artist was not aware of the identity of the individual depicted in the photograph. The similarities between the photos were unintentional and inadvertent.

We don’t think it matters that the man in question was a notable politician: using photos from an image search to create a most wanted poster is surely putting the subject at risk, is it not?

Tags: FBI, Photoshop, trending

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Microsoft IE Hole Used in Google China Attacks

Facebook-Web-Design — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 06:30:53 +0000

Update 3: Now the State Department is quoted as saying it will issue a formal "demarche" to the Chinese government. From the Register:

"We will be issuing a formal demarche to the Chinese government in Beijing on this issue in the coming days, probably early next week," US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters Friday. "It will express our concern for this incident and request information from China as to an explanation of how it happened and what they plan to do about it."

Update 2: On a related note, while various sources the U.S. government is backing Google’s decision, Voice of America reports:

The top American official in China says the U.S. government will stay out of negotiations between Internet giant Google and the Chinese government. At the same time, though, he stressed that the issue of Internet freedom is related to free speech, which is a core American value.

…

He said the U.S. government sees the American company’s negotiations with China as a business matter and therefore will not get involved.

Update:

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According to multiple sources, the attacks exploited a new security hole in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Microsoft is working with Google and other partners o patch the hole. The attackers called the attacks "Operation Aurora", according to McAfee.

Original Artilcle: There has been a lot of confusion and mixed reporting going on around this whole Google China situation. Verisign, whose iDefense team who has researched the attacks took note of this and put up a blog post trying to clear the air. Read that to get a clear summarization of what the firm knows. Within that, Verisign says:

The attack bears significant resemblance to a July 2009 attack in which attackers launched targeted e-mail campaigns against approximately 100 IT-focused companies. The July attack employed a PDF file that exploited a zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Reader. The malware associated with the summer attacks communicated with Command & Control Servers configured similarly to the Command and Control Servers involved in the Google attacks. In fact, the C&C servers from the Google attacks are within the same subnet and six IP addresses apart from the Command and Control server addresses in the summer attacks.

Considering the similarity of the two attacks, it is likely that the summer attacks and the Google attacks originate from the same actor and that the organizations targeted in the Silicon Valley attacks have been compromised since July. It is not much of a stretch to speculate (This is the speculation part) that both attacks leveraged an Adobe vulnerability although that has not been confirmed and Google is not talking.

According to reports, iDefense declares that the Chinese govenrment was behind the effort, which explains Google’s actions, and the involvement of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said:

We have been briefed by Google on these allegations, which raise very serious concerns and questions. We look to the Chinese government for an explanation. The ability to operate with confidence in cyberspace is critical in a modern society and economy. I will be giving an address next week on the centrality of internet freedom in the 21st century, and we will have further comment on this matter as the facts become clear.

Chinese government officials were quoted by Bloomberg:

"The Chinese government administers the Internet according to law and we have explicit stipulations over what content can be spread on the Internet," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a regular briefing in Beijing today. Chinese law prohibits hacking and other forms of online attacks, she said, declining to say whether that law also applies to state agencies.

…

"Effective guidance of public opinion on the Internet is an important way of protecting the security of online information," Wang Chen, director of the State Council Information Office, said in a question-and-answer session with reporters, a transcript of which was posted on the office’s Web site today.

Google.cn is still accessible (at least from here in the U.S.), and it is no longer censoring search results. Among the other companies affected by the attacks were Yahoo and Adobe.

Related Articles:

> China Responds To Google Situation

> Baidu’s Stock Soars Following China News

> Google May Quit China

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Mashable’s Weekly Job Listings in Social Media & Marketing

Facebook-Web-Design — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:30:48 +0000

If you’re seeking a job in social media, we’d like to help out. For starters, Mashable’s Job Lists section gathers together all our resource lists, how-tos and expert guides to help you get hired. In particular, you might want to see our articles on How to Leverage Social Media for Career Success and How to Find a Job on Twitter.

But we’d like to help in a more direct way, too. Mashable’s job boards are a place for socially-savvy companies to find people like you. This week and every week, Mashable features its coveted job board listings for a variety of positions in the web, social media space, and beyond. Have a look at what’s good and new on our job boards: