A Face-Finding Search Engine

A new approach to face recognition is better at handling low-resolution video.

Today there are more low-quality video cameras--surveillance and traffic cameras, cell-phone cameras and webcams--than ever before. But modern search engines can't identify objects very reliably in clear, static pictures, much less in grainy YouTube clips. A new software approach from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University could make it easier to identify a person's face in a low-resolution video. The researchers say that the software could be used to identify criminals or missing persons, or it could be integrated into next-generation video search engines.

This is both cool and scary at the same time.