(Getty Images)

The facial recognition revolution

Editor's Note: Jan Chipchase is Executive Creative Director of Global Insights at frog, a global innovation firm. This post is part of the Global Innovation Showcase created by the New America Foundation and the Global Public Square. His Twitter handle is @janchip.

By Jan Chipchase - Special to CNN

The revolution is right here in front of us; we just can’t see it yet.

Less than a decade ago, while conducting research into how people use mobile technology around the globe, there would come a point where I’d take out my camera and start documenting. The act of taking a photo was very much a one-way street – me documenting the interviewee.

Then, about four years ago, the relationship started to shift. Pretty much anywhere in the world when I took out my camera, people would then delve into pockets and bags (and occasionally sleeves) and pull out a camera phone and start to document me documenting them. Today, they still take the photo, but what is taken is far more likely to be shared online.

The next step in this evolution - or should I say revolution - will soon be upon us with the mainstreaming of facial recognition technology, which through smartphones will literally be in the palm of your hand. The ability to identify someone at a moment's notice by snapping a photo of him or her, to trigger an immediate influx of data about the person behind the face, will forever change the world. 

About

ABOUT    PRESS    TEAM    CONTACT   

 

Sparked is the world's first Microvolunteering network.

"Easy, social, online volunteering for busy people."

WHY MICROVOLUNTEERING?

Most of us live incredibly busy lives. With 60 hour work-weeks, kids, running errands, and the stress of everything else, it's difficult to take an entire day off to volunteer. And yet, we do have spare time. But it comes in moments throughout our day. In fact, every single day, we spend nearly 400 million hours on Facebook and we watch over two billion Youtube videos. At Sparked, it's our goal to offer *convenient* online volunteerism to you. We're driven to fit volunteerism into the same kind of time that you might normally spend on Facebook, Farmville, or Twitter. It's volunteerism for the digital age. We call it microvolunteering.

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Sparked is created and offered by The Extraordinaries, Inc., which was founded in July of 2008 as a for-profit social enterprise (and a certified B-Corp) with headquarters in San Francisco, CA. Through the tools built by The Extraordinaries, nearly 300,000 people have microvolunteered their time for nonprofits all over the world.

The investment team

Kapor Capital - Stephen DeBerry, Mitch Kapor, and Freada Kapor Klein
True Ventures - Puneet Agarwal
Alan Webber
James Currier
Stan Chudnovsky
Ariel Poler
Esther Dyson

Social enterprise support

Echoing Green
Knight Foundation
Ashoka Changemakers
WeMedia
Rolex Awards for Enterprise, Young Laureates Program
NetSquared
FACT
United Nations WYSA

 

 

L’immense lègue de Wangari Maathai à l’écologie mondiale et au continent africain

Wangari Maathai, lors de la session inaugurale du Conseil des droits de l'homme de l'ONU, le 19 juin 2006.

REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

Par RFI

Wangari Maathai, militante kényane, s'est éteinte dimanche 25 septembre au soir à l'âge de 71 ans, des suites d'un cancer. Prix Nobel de la paix en 2004 pour son engagement en faveur du développement durable, de la démocratie et de la paix, elle aura passé sa vie à travailler pour l'écologie, laissant derrière elle un héritage immense.

Mission:

The Meta-Activism Project (MAP) is a non-traditional think tank that leverages the affordances of the digital network to better understand its effects on social power.

We pursue our mission by building human and informational infrastructure for the study of digital activism, which means weaving human networks of activists and scholars and creating informational resources. Our motivating question is: “How are we creating knowledge about digital activism and how can we do so more effectively?”

The ultimate goal of these activities is to make digital activism a more effective means of achieving a transparent, democratic, and participatory global society.

Imagine affordable internet access to wifi hotspots everywhere, for everyone, at any time. Wherever people live, wifi is already there, but the connections are all locked up. KeyWifi is a safe, secure way to rent your hotspot on your terms to others that you trust, and to get you wifi access in thousands of new locations.

Join KeyWifi. Help your neighbors and improve your neighborhood

Supply your hotspot. By helping others without Wifi, you can make up to $6 per user/mo.

Use KeyWifi hotspots. Pay just $9.89/mo. and get keys to access local hotspots

Source: PWYP Norway
Date: 19 Sep 2011

Click here to download a copy of the report Piping Profits

Ten of the world’s most powerful oil, gas and mining companies own 6,038 subsidiaries and over a third of them are based in secrecy jurisdictions, a new Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Norway report today reveals.

Secrecy jurisdictions facilitate illicit financial flows, to which the developing world loses US$1 trillion a year. The financial opacity created by the use of secrecy jurisdictions also undermines trust in markets and damages market efficiency.

Examining companies’ annual reports and stock exchange filings, PWYP Norway identified and located all of these companies’ subsidiaries. The report, Piping Profits found that:

• 2,083 (34.5%) of the 6,038 subsidiaries belonging to the 10 of the world’s most powerful Extractive Industry companies are incorporated in secrecy jurisdictions.

• The global Extractive Industry’s favourite place to incorporate is by far the US state of Delaware with 15.2% of the subsidiaries located there.

• The second favourite Extractive Industry Company (EIC) Secrecy Jurisdiction is the Netherlands, where 358 subsidiaries belonging to EI giants are based.

• Chevron is the most opaque EIC major in this study. 62% of Chevron’s 77 subsidiaries are located in Secrecy Jurisdictions. ConocoPhillips is the second most opaque oil and gas major in this report with 57% of its 536 subsidiaries incorporated in Secrecy Jurisdictions.

• Chevron, Conoco and Exxon are the three US EI major companies surveyed in this report. Combined, 439 (56.1%) of those three North American oil majors’ 783 subsidiaries are incorporated in Secrecy Jurisdictions.

• Glencore International AG is the most opaque mining company in the Piping Profits survey with 46% of its 46 subsidiaries incorporated in Secrecy Jurisdictions.

These findings are of critical concern as natural resources offer the largest financial potential to improve economic and social opportunities for hundreds of millions of people living in least developed and emerging countries. By incorporating over a third of their subsidiaries in secrecy jurisdictions, the extractive industry is potentially complicit in suppressing these opportunities.

RepRap is a free desktop 3D printer capable of printing plastic objects. Since many parts of RepRap are made from plastic and RepRap can print those parts, RepRap is a self-replicating machine - one that anyone can build given time and materials. It also means that - if you've got a RepRap - you can print lots of useful stuff, and you can print another RepRap for a friend...

RepRap is about making self-replicating machines, and making them freely available for the benefit of everyone. We are using 3D printing to do this, but if you have other technologies that can copy themselves and that can be made freely available to all, then this is the place for you too.

Reprap.org is a community project, which means you are welcome to edit most pages on this site, or better yet, create new pages of your own. Our community portal and New Development pages have more information on how to get involved. Use the links below and on the left to explore the site contents. You'll find some content translated into other languages.

RepRap was the first of the low-cost 3D printers, and the RepRap Project started the open-source 3D printer revolution. It is described in the video on the right.

"La compassion, assortie d'un effort de la puissance publique, est la moins confortable et la moins commode des règles de comportement et d'action à notre époque, conclut Galbraith. Mais elle reste la seule compatible avec une vie vraiment civilisée."

Artificial island could be solution for rising Pacific sea levels

Kiribati's President Anote Tong is considering radical action of moving 100,000 people to 'structures resembling oil rigs'

The 'Lilypad' floating city, a concept by the Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut Photograph: vincent.callebaut.org

Sea levels are rising so fast that the tiny Pacific state of Kiribati is seriously considering moving its 100,000 people on to artificial islands. In a speech to the 16-nation Pacific Islands Forum this week, President Anote Tong said radical action may be needed and that he had been looking at a $2bn plan that involved "structures resembling oil rigs":

"The last time I saw the models, I was like 'wow it's like science fiction, almost like something in space. So modern, I don't know if our people could live on it. But what would you do for your grandchildren? If you're faced with the option of being submerged, with your family, would you jump on an oil rig like that? And [I] think the answer is 'yes'. We are running out of options, so we are considering all of them."