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Meitu's new phone uses AI to snap better selfies
Chinese selfie app and smartphone company Meitu has unveiled its newest flagship, and it's all about making you look better. The T8 includes a front-facing camera with optical image stabilization and dual-pixel phase detection autofocus (PDAF) similar to Samsung's Galaxy S7 and the ASUS ZenFone 3 Zoom -- rare components in a selfie camera. It also has a feature called Magical AI Beautification. Like Meitu's popular beauty apps, it can detect your skin tone, age and gender, then touch up your selfie accordingly.
The Meitu selfie app unlocks your anime beauty and personal data
There's a price for the beauty that comes from the Chinese selfie app that's been flooding Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with glowing (with a twist of anime) renditions of your friends: It's data.
Of course I took these eerily detailed 3D selfies at CES
I've taken, oh, I don't know, about a million selfies in my life. I've even dabbled in 3D portraits. But I've never seen a three-dimensional capture of my face as realistic as the one generated by Bellus3D's Face Camera at CES. The new device is slightly larger than a stick of gum, and houses two monochrome sensors and one that records color, meshing the information together for a highly detailed picture. The camera is still just a prototype, but when it's available, it can be attached to your phone or tablet. The ring light that you see in the pictures was only included for the demo, and is not actually a part of the Face Camera, but you can easily attach one of your own.
The Engadget Podcast Ep 16: Feds Watching
Managing editor Dana Wollman and senior editor Devindra Hardawar join host Terrence O'Brien to talk about the week's biggest tech news, including Nike's new self-lacing shoes, Netlix's offline mode and "yelfies." Then they'll rant about what's been bother them this week, whether that's DirecTV, crappy touchpads or Amazon's convoluted pile of apps. Lastly they'll try to unravel the complicated mess that is Rule 41 and what it means for privacy in America.
Yelp wants you to add a 'Yelfie' to your restaurant reviews
After letting its users virtually queue up for restaurants with a previous update, now Yelp wants them to put a face to the person behind each star-rating. With the service's amateur reviews shaping restaurant scenes around the globe, the influential platform's latest update allows its users to attach a selfie, or "Yelfie," as the site is unfortunately calling them, to their reviews.
'Watch Dogs 2' web app tries to reveal secrets in your selfies
Ubisoft is no stranger to producing poignant on the surface, but ultimately vapid marketing for its hacker-centric Watch Dogs series. And the latest example of that is a selfie analyzer for the upcoming sequel. The pitch is that your self-portraiture reveals a lot of hidden info about you, and uploading a picture to the web app will reveal it. Stuff like your age, what your picture says about you to employers, financial institutions, pharmaceutical companies, political organizations and police databases -- info based on details in your photos. That's in theory, of course. In practice the results don't pan out so well.
ICYMI: The selfie-obsessed can verify online ID with photos
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: Mastercard is introducing a way to verify online purchases, by sending a link to the user's cell phone, which then walks them through taking a selfie and blinking on command to show they're a real human. Meanwhile Google unleashed a slew of new products at its Developer's Conference in San Francisco, here's the full scoop on the new phone. Toyota's cute little robot is available only in Japan but sure is darling, the video is here. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Mastercard's 'selfie pay' comes to Europe
Have you dreamt of a world where everyone verifies their online purchases with a selfie? Me neither, but apparently that's a future Mastercard believes in. The company's "Identity Check Mobile," better known as selfie pay, is rolling out now in the following European markets: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the UK. It follows trials in the US, Canada and the Netherlands, which have presumably gone down a storm -- Mastercard says the technology will be available "across the globe" starting next year.
Court overturns New Hampshire ban on ballot selfies
In the state of New Hampshire, proud voters can legally snap a selfie after filling out their ballot paper. Hurray! As NBC News reports, the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston has upheld a lower court ruling which concluded the state-wide ban was unfair. Since 2014, legislation has made it illegal for citizens to photograph and share their ballot markings on social media. According to politicians, the law was intended to combat potential vote-buying schemes -- the argument being that shady individuals could use them to track and verify influenced votes.
HSBC's 'selfie verification' helps customers open a bank account
In a bid to replace the password, banks have jumped about the biometric bandwagon and are experimenting with new ways to authenticate their UK customers. Between them, HSBC and Barclays have already trialled fingerprints and used Voice IDs over the telephone, but HSBC now wants to let business customers use "selfie verification" to pass identity checks for new accounts via its new smartphone app.
The compact Yuneec Breeze drone is built for 4K selfies
Yuneec is known for high-end drones with features like 4K and collision avoidance, but is going straight for Joe Consumer with its latest model. The Breeze is a $500 compact drone with five flight modes and an on-board 4K camera, making it ideal for types who want high-quality aerial selfies.
Google Photos celebrates first birthday and 24 billion selfies
Happy birthday, Google Photos. In the year since its launch, the service has created 1.6 billion animations, collages and movies from your snapshots, according to a post on the Google blog. More than that, there've been some 2 trillion labels, with 24 billion of them categorizing selfies. All told, the search giant says that thanks to the cloud backup option, the app's 200 million users have collectively cleared 13.7 petabytes of storage from their phones. If you'll remember, opting for high quality photo uploads offers unlimited storage, but choosing original quality counts against your overall Google storage. That may change in the future if you own a Nexus device, though.
ICYMI: Facebook VR selfies, laser-powered water and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-35216{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-35216, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-35216{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-35216").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: Facebook is adding VR to the social network and one of the new tricks will let users take a selfie of their avatar selves inside of different tourist spots. Japanese researchers discovered that a water droplet coating allowed water to be controlled by a laser, capable of pulling 150 times its mass when harnessed like a mini oxen. Finally, a backpack on Kickstarter would charge your devices on the move and roughly nine other things. Guinness World Record fans will want to see this crazy long K'NEX contraption. As always, please share any great tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
MasterCard's selfie security: What could possibly go wrong?
When I read about MasterCard's plan to do selfie security with purchases, I wondered what the first massive breach of biometric data is going to look like. Unlike passwords, biometrics such as face mapping, fingerprints and iris scans can't be changed when a database gets popped. Worse, data sold to marketers or snarfed into an authoritarian database isn't revokable. Manny the cat would not approve. Fortunately, MasterCard isn't going to be replacing the password or pin with selfies, but instead wants to make its "Selfie Pay" app part of a two-step security routine when purchases are made or money is withdrawn. MasterCard says users will be required to blink for the app to demonstrate it's a live image. The company plans to roll it out in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and a few European countries by this summer.
Mastercard to let Brits confirm payments with a selfie
In its latest attempt to reduce online fraud, payment giant Mastercard is bringing its "selfie pay" technology to the UK. MasterCard Identity Check, which also utilizes fingerprint technology, maps a user's face to verify their identity, replacing pin codes, passwords or verification codes typically used to verify mobile phone payments.
ICYMI: Tricksy smartphones, fake kidney implants and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-25170{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-25170, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-25170{width:100%;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-25170").style.display="none";}catch(e){} #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-25170{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-25170, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-25170{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-25170").style.display="none";}catch(e){} Today on In Case You Missed It: Brand new Mobile World Congress smartphones can both take heat map selfies and charge your phone with a power pack using salt and water (aka break-up tears). Vanderbilt University researchers developed an artificial kidney that uses the patient's own kidney cells to filter blood and avoid rejection. And it turns out cancer cells get healthy cells to to join their tumor party by engaging in some old-fashioned arm-twisting. Researchers recorded cancer cells extending fibers to reel other cells in and it is not a pretty sight.
Microsoft Selfie app now shares your iPhone self-portraits
The whole point of Microsoft's Selfie app for iPhones is to share your pretty face (albeit an ideal, algorithmically-modified version of it) with the world, but you haven't had an easy way to make that happen for most of the app's existence. A bit ironic, don't you think? Microsoft agrees. It quietly updated Selfie with a sharing feature that makes it almost trivial to indulge in a little public vanity. You can tap one button to post your latest shot directly on Facebook, or another to bring up the iOS sharing dialogue and spread the joy through other apps.
Lenovo's cheap smartphone can do quality selfies
This time last year, Lenovo unveiled the Vibe Xtension Selfie Flash attachment and then managed to avoid launching a smartphone with front LED flash for the rest of 2015. (Well, if you exclude the Motorola bunch, that is.) At long last, this year the company's back with an affordable model that not only has an integrated front light, but also uses good components to produce quality selfies. Meet the Vibe S1 Lite, which is a $199 device that manages to offer a Sony-powered 8-megapixel front-facing camera with a five-piece lens for "zero distortion," as well as a front LED flash. The main camera isn't bad, either, as it comes with Samsung's 13-megapixel ISOCELL sensor with phase-detection auto focus plus a dual-tone flash.
Microsoft released a new selfie app for iOS because YOLO
Microsoft has done an excellent job of putting its apps and services where users are lately. Since Satya Nadella took over at CEO in early 2014, the company has released great (and free) Office apps for iOS and Android, leveraged its purchase of Accompli to turn Outlook into probably the best mobile email app out there and even released Cortana to other platforms. Now, the company is turning to a far more crucial service that every smartphone user will surely appreciate -- making your selfies better.
This selfie AI is trained to know a good shot from a bad one
What's the difference between a good and bad selfie? A neural network artificial intelligence, trained on a diet of over two million selfies, apparently knows. First, the important findings: good selfies involve being a woman -- and one that's tilting their head. A small forehead and longer hair are good points too. Filters help, as do borders. For men, while they didn't rank in the AI's top 100 (ugh, bias!), the bot advises that you show your full head and shoulders. Longer hairstyles (and ones combed upwards) don't hurt mens' chances either. Its creator, Andrej Karpathy, who has worked with Google Research and DeepMind, explains that it's a convoluted neural network which does the image recognizing and, er, judging. You can judge yourself (for yourself) using the network's Twitter bot (61.7 percent here), or read on for how it learned to do all that.
