face scanning
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Contractors say they were told to lie while collecting Pixel 4 face scans
This summer, we learned that Google had embarked on a wide scale project to collect facial recognition data, which the company said was necessary to build "fairness" into face unlocking for its Pixel 4, which will be officially unveiled on October 15th. A new report from the New York Daily News has more details on where Google sent people to collect that data, and what they were told to do by the company that hired them as contractors for the project. The people collecting the data worked as TVCs -- the "temporary, vendor and contractors" who outnumber Google's own employees on the company's roster -- for an employment firm called Randstad. While the statement Google gave to media this summer indicated that participants signed a consent form allowing for the use of their data, including everything from infrared response to how they picked up the phone from the table, temp workers the paper talked to said they were trained to be pushy, and even lie to people about what was going on. Google told the News that it was investigating claims that "dubious" tactics were used, as the reporters cited several people who said they participated without any clear idea of what was going on or who the data was for. According to the contractors cited, they had a mandate to pursue "darker skin tones," which included pushes to collect scans from homeless people and college students -- the former because they'd be less likely to talk to the media, and all of them because they'd be willing to do it in exchange for $5 Starbucks gift cards.
Visualized: 3D3 Solutions scans our face in two seconds flat
See that bloke? That's Darren Murph. Well, a digital representation of the human version, anyway. That image was captured in two painless seconds at the hands of 3D3 Solutions, which was on-hand here at SIGGRAPH to demonstrate its newest FlexScan setups. The rig that snapped our face rings up at around $10,000, and relies on a Canon DSLR (strictly for capturing textures), a projector and a secondary camera. As you've likely picked up on, this is hardly designed for average DIYers, but these solutions are also far more detailed and flexible than using Microsoft's Kinect. We're told that the company recently started to support Nikon cameras as well, and for those who'd prefer to use their existing cameras / PJs, a hobbyist-centric software package will allow you to do just that. The only problem? Figuring out where the $2,700 (for software) is going to come from. Head on past the break for a demonstration vid, or peruse the gallery below if you're feeling extra creepy. %Gallery-130289%
