A Tel Aviv University student has developed software that can make aesthetic judgements on faces — and comes close to matching the views of real people.
Amit Kagian developed the programme for his master’s thesis in computer science. It can rank a face based on qualities such as symmetry and smoothness of skin, but has so far only been tried on women.
“Our software allows the computer to complete a much more complex task of aesthetic judgment; humans cannot define exactly how they do it,” said Mr Kagian, who said the work was “a substantial advance in the development of artificial intelligence”.
The research, under Professors Eytan Ruppin and Gideon Dror, was published in Vision Research.
Israeli start-up SmartTCP has developed SmartTCPArc, which can teach industrial robots to do complex tasks such as welding, cutting and drilling. CEO Efi Lebel said his company can train a robot in 17 minutes. He told the Jerusalem Post the robots “will relieve humans of the drudgery of repeated tasks, dangerous tasks such as welding work in high-rise construction projects, and tasks in toxic conditions”.
A new Israeli invention can keep track of your driving and send text messages when you misbehave. GreenRoad, based in Or Yehuda, has developed a system which assesses 120 driving behaviours, building a profile to predict a driver’s behaviour. It has already been installed in buses for a major American company that carries two million children a day.
Don’t sweat. No, seriously, don’t. Your stress could be detected remotely if you do. A team at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem had subjects exercise, beamed 100 gigahertz electromagnetic waves at their palms and again as they returned to a normal state. The reflected waves’ intensity changed with their sweat levels, heart and blood pressure. They published in Physical Review.