Lost the remote? Use your face

A researcher has discovered a way to use facial expressions to speed and slow video playback.

By using a combination of facial expression recognition software and automated tutoring technology Jacob Whitehill, a computer science Ph.D. student from UC San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering, is leading the project that ultimately is part of a larger venture to use automated facial expression recognition to make robots more effective teachers.

The researchers recently conducted a pilot test with 8 people that demonstrated information within the facial expressions people make while watching recorded video lectures can be used to predict a person's preferred viewing speed of the video and how difficult a person perceives the lecture at each moment in time.

"If I am a student dealing with a robot teacher and I am completely puzzled and yet the robot keeps presenting new material, that's not going to be very useful to me. If, instead, the robot stops and says, 'Oh, maybe you're confused,' and I say, 'Yes, thank you for stopping,' that's really good," said Whitehill in a release.

Recent advances in the fields of pattern recognition, computer vision, and machine learning have made automatic facial expression recognition in real-time a viable resource for intelligent tutoring systems (ITS), researchers added. As facial expression recognition technology improves in accuracy, the range of its application will grow. One particular application we are currently developing is a \smart video player" which modulates the video speed in real-time based on the user's facial expression so that the rate of lesson presentation is optimal for the current user, researchers said.

In the pilot study, researcher said the facial movements people made when they perceived the lecture to be difficult varied widely from person to person. Most of the 8 test subjects, however, blinked less frequently during difficult parts of the lecture than during easier portions of the lecture, which is supported by findings in psychology.

One of the next steps for this project is to determine what facial movements one person naturally makes when they are exposed to difficult or easy lecture material. From here, researchers could train a user specific model that predicts when a lecture should be sped up or slowed down based on the spontaneous facial expressions a person makes.

The goal of UC San Diego's Machine Perception Laboratory is to gain insights into how the brain works by developing systems that perceive and interact with humans in real time using natural communication channels. Researchers are also developing algorithms for robots that develop and learn to interact with people on their own. Applications include personal robots, perceptive tutoring systems, and system for clinical assessment, monitoring, and intervention.

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Microsoft, HP ship free tools to protect Web sites from hackers

June 24, 2008 (Computerworld) Microsoft Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. on Tuesday unveiled free tools to help Web developers and site administrators defend against the rapidly growing number of SQL injection attacks that aim to hijack legitimate sites.

"We released two new tools, and HP has released one, to help administrators discover flaws so that they can mitigate attacks," said Mark Miller, director of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing product management.

The move is in response to a major upswing during the first six months of 2008 in the number of attacks targeting legitimate sites. Most of the hacks have used SQL injection attacks, and have compromised significant sites including ones operated by government agencies, the United Nations and major corporations.

In a report issued the same day, Finnish security company F-Secure estimated the number of pages hacked by SQL injection attacks so far this year at between two and three million.

Previously, Microsoft has denied that its software was vulnerable to attack or otherwise responsible for the flood of hacked sites. Instead, the company told developers and administrators to follow the company's guidelines to protect their sites from attack.

That stance hasn't changed, but Miller said Microsoft's customers have been asking for more help. "We have seen a recent rise in the number of SQL injection attacks," he acknowledged, "and we wanted to provide some tools and guidance to users so that they could deal with these attacks."

One of the two Microsoft tools came from the company's IIS (Internet Information Services) Web server developers. Dubbed "UrlScan," it's actually an updated version of a tool last refreshed in 2003, said Wade Hilmo, a senior development lead in the IIS group.

UrlScan, Hilmo added, can now scan query strings -- not only a URL itself, as before -- so that it can filter the malicious strings that power SQL injection attacks. But it's only a temporary stopgap meant to protect a site while developers go into the code to correct the problems being exploited. "This is only a mitigation," Hilmo cautioned.

It should block the bulk of attacks, however. "UrlScan can filter out all the known versions of the attacks we've seen this year," said Hilmo.

Microsoft's SQL Server team contributed the second Microsoft utility, "SQL Source Code Analysis Tool," which analyzes ASP.Net code and sniffs out vulnerable bits. APS.Net is Microsoft's Web application framework, and a major target of 2008's injection attack campaigns.

Fixes, however, must still be made manually by developers, said Bala Neerumalla, a software security developer in the company's SQL group.

Users shouldn't think that Microsoft is getting altruistic, said John Pescatore, an analyst with Gartner. "Don't fool yourself, if these attacks were only against, say, MySQL, they wouldn't be doing this." Rather, Microsoft is reacting to the uptick in attacks against ASP.Net code, he continued.

"This [SQL injection attack trend] really started when companies began looking at Web 2.0 and decided that they had to have things like social networking and blogging on their sites," said Pescatore. "A lot of those features were added and didn't go through the normal checks [for secure code]. That kind of tinkering leads to a loss of discipline."

Tools like these, added Pescatore, "rattle the doorknobs" of a site, like a city cop on a beat once did as he passed through his neighborhood. "Better for us to rattle them first," said Pescatore.

Also today, Hewlett-Packard's Web security team posted "HP Scrawlr" -- short for "SQL Injector and Crawler" -- to its Web site. Like "fuzzers" that researchers use to spot potential security problems in, for instance, file formats, HP Scrawlr analyzes Web pages for vulnerability to SQL injection attack, then reports its findings.

Microsoft unveiled its free tools in an advisory posted by the Microsoft Security Response Center, which included download links for UrlScan and SQL Source Code Analysis Tool.

Updates come for CorelDRAW X4

A service pack became available Tuesday for CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 illustration and desktop publishing applications.

Corel's updates add support for more than 25 new camera RAW formats. The company also aimed to iron out some graphic design workflows.

"With this service pack for CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4, we have focused on addressing the major feedback provided by our users," said Gerard Metrailler, senior director of Corel's graphics product management.

Users can obtain the updates automatically via the installed software, or by visiting Corel.com. A free trial of the suite is also available.

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 includes CorelDRAW for illustration and page layout, PhotoPaint for photo editing, and PowerTRACE for bitmap-to-vector tracing. The package, considered a competitor to the more expensive Adobe Illustrator and InDesign CS3, works on Windows Vista and XP systems.

Corel also sells the image applications Painter and PaintShop Pro, as well as WordPerfect X4, a competitor to Microsoft Office.

Earlier in June, the Ottawa, Ontario-based company announced an early preview of its Designer Technical Suite X4, which includes CAD 3D and AutoCAD compatibility

Nokia To Make Symbian Open Source

Wednesday, June 25, 2008: Nokia is planning to kill three birds with one stone -- Symbian. The big company Nokia from a small country Finland is planning to make some major changes in the mobile industry. The first step is to acquire the remaining shares in Symbian, the software company that develops and licences Symbian OS, an open operating system for mobile devices. Nokia, which makes 40 per cent of all phones sold globally, will pay €264 million ($410 million) for the 52 per cent of British-based Symbian it does not already own. Secondly, Nokia would gradually open up the Symbian platform, making it open source. And thirdly, it is bringing all the leading mobile players together for the Symbian platform.

Plans for the Foundation have already received wide support from other industry leaders. The industry majors who will be part of the foundation include biggies like AT&T, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone. Membership of this non-profit Foundation will be open to all organisations. This initiative is supported by current shareholders and management of Symbian Limited, who have been actively involved in its development.

The Foundation's platform will build on the leading open mobile software platform, with more than 200 million phones, across 235 models, already shipped by multiple vendors and tens of thousands of third-party applications already available for Symbian OS-based devices.

Contributions from Foundation members through open collaboration will be integrated to further enhance the platform. The Foundation will make selected components available as open source at launch. It will then work to establish the most complete mobile software offering available in open source. This will be made available over the next two years and is intended to be released under Eclipse Public License (EPL) 1.0.

Bundle Offer: Get Virgin Mobile's vTrendy With Lifetime Validity

Priced at Rs 1,499, the new vTrendy handset includes one-touch access to Vbytes -- Virgin Mobile’s VAS data portal.

Monday, June 23, 2008: Virgin Mobile has introduced its vTrendy handset - a colour screen phone loaded with FM radio. With every vTrendy phone, users will get lifetime validity recharge and a starter user kit. Weighing 65gms, vTrendy is loaded with features which include one-touch access to Vbytes - Virgin Mobile’s data portal, speaker phone, organiser, phonebook memory of 500 contacts and additional 150 contacts on RUIM (SIM) card, to name a few.

Commenting on the launch, P Madhavan, chief sales and distribution officer, Virgin Mobile India, said, “Youth today are faced with a situation where they have no stylish CDMA handsets in the price range of below Rs 1,500. Even a GSM service provider’s handset bundled offer does not really appeal to them because of lack of attractive handsets. vTrendy is a ‘no compromise deal for youth’ since it combines a stylish handset to suit their budget, is loaded with features such as FM radio, 65K colour and long messaging service (LMS) and is bundled with an offer tailored just for them.”

According to Deval Parikh, chief officer, handsets, VAS and procurement, Virgin Mobile India, “This stylish looking, light weighted, sleek and feature rich handset has been especially designed to appeal to our young audience who consider personal devices an expression of their style statement amongst their peer group. To add to our users delight, vTrendy has a one-touch access to Vbytes, Virgin Mobile’s VAS data portal, where users can get unlimited access to Virgin Mobile selected content and other applications for a simple charge of Rs 5 per day.”

With a price tag of Rs 1,499, vTrendy is available across 15,000 outlets nationally and over 1,000 modern retail outlets including The Mobile Store, Univercell, Croma, Convergem, Big C, Vishal Mega Mart, Vijay Sales and Sangeetha, to name a few. Apart from this, the handset will be made available in 34 kiosks in high traffic malls across the country.

SMS For Free With Peekamo

Peekamo has announced the launch of its mobile social network service. The launch marks the availability of this service in India which enables users to send and receive text messages on their cell phones for free.

The SMS-sponsored messages can be sent to individuals as well as groups, and a user's cell phone number does not show. Users of Peekamo can create a profile, find other users, and enjoy their benefits for free. This service allows Peekamo users, to connect with people outside their network as well.

Peekamo maintains that it solves the cost and technical problems of messaging with its universal platform for mobile to mobile, PC to mobile and mobile to PC text messaging.

Speaking about the service, Al Sajoo, Chief Executive Officer, Peekamo, said, "Digitalization of communication has ushered in certain innovations that have facilitated us to stay connected with our near and dear irrespective of which part of the world they are in. Our service has already garnered a good customer base in U.S and Canada and we are sure that this innovative service will be widely accepted and appreciated in India also."

Peekamo ensures that the service is 100% spam free. Advertisements though, are embedded into messages.

Security Flaw Tarnishes Firefox Download Record

The new version of the Firefox browser was downloaded over eight million times in its first 24 hours of release in what organisers claimed was a world record.

But the success was tempered by reports from a software security company that Firefox 3.0 contained a serious security flaw that potentially lets an attacker take over a PC if a user clicks on a booby-trapped link.

According to the Mozilla foundation that released the new browser, the software was downloaded 8.3 million times in its first 24 hours of release starting Tuesday morning.

The downloads were so popular that they initially crashed the servers running the operation.

At their busiest, the servers were handling more than 9,000 downloads per minute and within five hours had surpassed the initial daily download of 1.6 million set by Firefox 2.0 in October 2006.

DV Labs/Tipping Point did not release details of the security flaw except to Mozilla, but news of the glitch was damaging to the browser which was claimed to be much more secure than the previous version.

Firefox 3.0 offers faster web browsing than the previous versions, along with lower memory use and nifty features like a built-in search application that automatically combs your web history.

Tech critics greeted the new browser and recommended users to adopt it.

"Firefox 3 is the best Web browser I've ever seen. And I've been using the Web since before there were Web browsers," said ComputerWorld's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols.

Firefox has been rapidly attracting users since its 2004 launch and now has approximately 18 percent of the market, compared to the 72 percent share enjoyed by Internet Explorer which has the advantage of being pre-installed on the vast majority of computers.

Firefox is mainly downloaded by individual users and as of February 2008 it had been downloaded over 500 million times. However, since one user may download the software several times, the best estimate for regular Firefox users is around 140 million.