Lenovo Face Recognition
Some of our Lenovo notebooks come with face recognition software, which is actually a reemergence of an old idea. We had facial recognition capabilities a long time ago. My first experience was with a ThinkPad T23 with an external camera mounted on the system’s UltraPort. It didn’t work well at all. Most likely because the cameras of that era were terrible. I think they were 0.3 megapixels, but may not have even been that much.
Now that some systems include integrated cameras with much better quality (1.3MP), facial recognition has become much better. The included software lets you log onto your Windows account simply by sitting in front of your system. Your face is your password. What is much cooler is that it is very user friendly for multiple user accounts. For example, let’s say you have three Windows accounts – Mom, Dad, and Sis. If you have associated their faces with their respective user accounts, the system determines which person is in front of the computer when Windows boots and automatically logs them onto the right account. In practice this works very well and is extremely fast at recognition. I was able to test this with several of my colleagues and each time all they had to do was sit in front of the computer and the system took care of the rest.
Depending on the software used, face recognition uses multiple techniques to identify a person’s face. Some of the more advanced programs use texture mapping in which a person’s skin texture is analyzed and matched. Most however, define nodal points on a person’s face and then use software to mathematically represent those points. Things measured include distance between the eyes, width of the nose, length of the jaw line, or shape of the cheekbones. Together these concatenate a numerical code which is stored in a database for later retrieval.
One particular aspect of the software Lenovo uses is rather freaky. When you sit down in front of the camera, the system generates two white dots that follow your eyes. Of course, this is completely harmless and is nothing more than a few white pixels shown on screen. However, when I see this, I immediately think that there are two lasers drilling holes into my corneas. Neurotic, yes, but that doesn’t stop me from wishing there was a way to turn this off. Others I polled liked the feature, so your experience may be totally different.
Of course, a feature like face recognition invites play, and what better way to play than to try and fool the software.
First up was an 8 x 10 color glossy photograph of yours truly (with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back). No matter how I held the photograph, no matter whether the security settings were set high or at their lowest setting, no matter what angle I held the photo, I was not able to use it to log onto the system. The result was exactly what I had expected – that the software was smart enough to distinguish a face from a picture of a face.
My next experiment was to see if the system recognized all types of faces. Sitting at home, I tried to enroll both of my birds. The software wouldn’t enroll them. I thought that perhaps that since their eyes were not at the front of their heads, the camera couldn’t see both at once and therefore couldn’t get a good reading. So next I tried my friend Jim’s cat. Same result – the software refused to accept the cat, but did happen to enroll Jim’s face when he got too close to the camera while holding the cat. Just for good measure, I tried another friend’s dog. On all of these, the software wouldn’t enroll the animals. So it seems that only human faces are recognized and accepted by the software.
It was time for one last experiment. Many people are familiar with the fabled two-key system to launch nuclear missiles. In this scenario, no one person can launch the weapons. It takes two people standing several yards apart turning the keys simultaneously to make it work. What if we could apply that same principle here – requiring TWO faces, not one, to log onto a user’s account? While we wouldn’t be launching nuclear weapons, such a scenario could be useful in any number of ways.
So I sat side by side with my friend Aimee in Lenovo’s Product Reviews lab to see if we could make this work. We created a new Windows account and tried to enroll both of our faces at once. The lighting was good, and since we were sitting at the same height right next to each other, we were more or less equal in the eyes of the camera. The software indicated a good capture, so we logged off. We sat down together and the system logged us on successfully. Then we tried just sitting in front of the system one by one. It logged on Aimee, but didn’t accept my face.
For good measure, we tried the whole setup one more time. Again, it picked Aimee’s face over mine. So not only is the software biased towards human faces, it also is biased towards women’s faces. I guess I should feel marginalized, but I’m more amused than anything else.
Overall I was impressed with the software. It was fast, accurate, and easy to use. Supposedly there is a password management feature where you can use your face to act as your password – much like on our fingerprint reader models. I haven’t tried it out yet, but if it is just as easy to use, then I think it would be a very viable solution.
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Lenovo H320 desktop
January 2nd, 2008 2:59 pm
Fun blog, loved reading it. Though I bet we can fool that software by mannequin.
January 2nd, 2008 3:01 pm
“…
Again, it picked Aimee’s face over mine. So not only is the software
biased towards human faces, it also is biased towards women’s faces.
…”
Mark,
maybe you should also have used some make-up,
as – I guess – Aimee might have,
in order to beguile the software.
SCNR
January 2nd, 2008 3:25 pm
The second try were you both sitting in the same places or did you trade?
Seems probably to me that if the software scans for a face and uses the first one it finds, unless you changed positions, it would encounter the same face first, the second time around.
January 2nd, 2008 3:43 pm
Interesting post!
I can’t help but be curious though… what if you wear contacts one day, glasses the next? Do you have to take your glasses off to log in?
How about if you get a wicked raccoon style sunburn while skiing? Or if you grow/shave your beard?
I guess it would all depend on the techniques being used by the software…
January 2nd, 2008 4:45 pm
We traded places if I remember correctly. As far as makeup goes, there is no amount of makeup that is going to make this ol’ mug any more attractive.
The software does tell you that when you initially enroll your face that you should not wear glasses.
There were a few people here at the office who wear glasses that tried the software. After the initial enrollment without their glasses, it seemed to work okay for them even when they were wearing their glasses. I’ll admit that I didn’t do exhaustive testing on this though.
January 2nd, 2008 8:59 pm
Sounds excellent! Any idea when it might be available? I love my new T61p, but I’m not *that* attached
January 3rd, 2008 10:20 am
Seems like I’m using the leftover of this brilliant software called Veriface. This just doesn’t work on my Y410 which I bought recently. When I go to register my face it keeps running that animation where two bars cross each other in front of your face and at the end of about 2 1/2 minutes it freezes and fails to register my face. And I really don’t think I’m that ugly. I find no help anywhere to resolve this so that the software works.
I’m glad that it works at least for someone, even if it’s only in the review labs.
January 3rd, 2008 7:51 pm
I am curious, is this feature going to be *just* as useless as the fingerprint reader?
Assume for a second that the software is capable of gauging the volume of the shape in front of it (I seriously doubt that it is capable of distinguishing a dead head from an alive one, given the resolution). Would you be willing to part with your head or your password under threat of physical violence?
That being said, how does the software react to the mold of the head? Painted mold of the head? Mold of the head with your photo affixed onto it? I am immediately thinking of those fancy 3D printers creating a 3D model of an object. Now, compare that to a passphrase of 40 characters from the alphabet [A-Za-z0-9]. I am pretty certain which one is more secure.
January 3rd, 2008 7:53 pm
Argh! That was supposed to be [A-Za-z0-9] and a lot of special characters. It was a bad idea to print them
January 6th, 2008 5:28 pm
so where’s the link to this fabled software?
- ‘civil’ ehud
January 6th, 2008 6:36 pm
well, let’s hope that they release proper drivers for the integrated webcam in vista first before they release this piece of software
January 6th, 2008 10:11 pm
Whilst the software is unique and specialized I may be able to point out that for certain individuals it is simply of no use. In business there are indeed security requirements for computing, particularly banking and finance and other related industries sure, but face recognition is only available with some models. I think this software would be ideal for CEO’s, company directors and managers.
Most cameras sold in a retail environment feature between 3.0-10.0 megapixels, this one features 1.3. The general aim of the sofware is to recognize the facial features regardless of megapixels.
Suppose a manager at a company one day had extra makeup on her face. Will the technology still be able to recognize the face?
Finally I want to say that there is already a variety of security measures available without having to use face recognition.
January 8th, 2008 8:33 am
Why do all these security measures only work on windows? Why not at boot time? It can’t be that difficult to secure a laptop with fingerprint security or face recognition in the bios, knowing there is this linux bios distro (Openbios) around to help out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinuxBIOS
http://www.linux.com/feature/58781
January 10th, 2008 6:24 am
[...] called, VerfiFace) on the market.(alreay on sale) Could I use a photo to deceive it? According to Lenovo’s blog, they said “No.” However, onwers should not forget to reset your login system before [...]
January 16th, 2008 12:45 am
Amar: When I go to register my face it keeps running that animation where twon bars cross each other in front of your face and at the end of about 2 1/2 minutes it freezes and fails to register my face.
Amar, it’s waiting for you to hit “Start”. The buttons on Veriface seem deactivated or greyed out, but usually they are active. Try hitting Start.
March 3rd, 2009 5:20 pm
it recognizes my friends face as mine! and we don’t even look much alike.
May 4th, 2009 9:55 pm
Hello,
My name is Vincent Oletu. I am a student at Harvard College and am working on a final project for a computer science class.
I am investigating the growing role of computers in everyday life and the implications of increased computing power, with regards to facial recognition technology (FRT) in particular.
I know your work involves human-computer interaction. Because of this, I would like to ask a few questions to learn your opinion on this matter. Can I set up a time to speak with you about this topic.
Your time and assistance is much appreciated.
Thank you,
Vincent
May 5th, 2009 9:19 am
I am able to register my face but still it is not working or my log is still the same using my password.
why?
May 5th, 2009 9:22 am
This veriface feature is somehow not designed to work perfectly because of the many issues brought up in this thread and in many other forums and blogs.
May 26th, 2009 8:13 am
how to configure lenovo face recongnition
July 5th, 2009 3:07 am
Do any of you know the software that is used for the face recognition??? Plz And Thnx Great Blog By The Way
July 5th, 2009 11:07 am
Veriface
September 6th, 2009 9:09 am
The program does accept pictures, which makes it pretty worthless. My bf took a pic of my face on his cameraphone, and then held up the phone to the camera – it worked like a charm.
So anyone could pretty much snap a pic of you, and then use it as a log on.
October 5th, 2009 5:05 am
lenovo very face is not working properly. when i go to enroll my fresh image or go to modify or do other operation, it closes itself.
October 30th, 2009 11:03 am
I have a new Windows 7 Lenovo S10-2 with veriFace. I use a password logon and I want to disable the constantly re-appearing veriface logon system. How do I do this? thanks
October 30th, 2009 3:34 pm
Richard,
Not to be glib here, but why not just uninstall Veriface?
October 31st, 2009 8:39 am
I didn’t know if Veriface is interconnected to anything else on System 7 that would be disabled or otherwise *messed up*. If not, the unistall would be the way. Any thoughts; thanks, Matt.
October 31st, 2009 11:35 pm
Uninstall seems to have worked just fine. Thanks. R
August 6th, 2010 12:45 am
Once unintalled, if I decide to install it again, can I?