Month: July 2008

Age Verification Cameras Easily Fooled

July 2, 2008 by 18 Comments


Nice try, Fujitaka. They manufacture cigarette vending machines in Japan, and were all set to roll out a new system of age verification cameras on their machines, which would scan the face of the buyer to look for sagging skin, wrinkles, age spots, and other signs of legal smoking age. The system is easily circumvented, however: people with a photo of an older person clipped from a magazine can fool the machine by simply showing the photo instead of their own faces.

Another aspect to Japan’s cigarette control is the Taspo card, which is an age verified ID issued to smokers of legal age or older (20 years old is the legal age in Japan). Taspo cards are required for over the counter purchases, and the majority of vending machines require them as well. Relatively few machines are outfitted with face recognition systems, but many more are set to ship in the coming months. Fujitaka claims they are working on a solution by improving the face recognition software, but we think it would be a lot easier to simply check the background of the image. Since the camera is static and always pointed in one direction, the portraits it captures should always have the same background. Someone please tell Fujitaka we just saved them a boatload of R&D money… until Guy Fawkes masks become more popular.

Another Helping Hand For The Work Bench

July 2, 2008 by 3 Comments


We like clever work bench accessories; especially the kind that make our projects that much easier. [rstraugh] put up his version of the ubiquitous helping hands: thirdhand++. The arms are made from modular coolant tubing that’s made for machine tools. With the basic arms in place, he created several attachments – like this PCB holder, a LCD holder, the usual alligator clips and even an oscilloscope probe holder.

Electric Bandages

July 2, 2008 by 2 Comments


Silverleaf Medical products has created an electric wound dressing that staves off infection by killing microbes in an open wound and preventing other germs from getting in.

They call it the CMB Antimicrobial Wound Dressing, and it is made of polyester fabric woven with a proprietary material called Prosit. When the bandage is moistened, the Prosit generates a low voltage, killing germs in the wound. One of these bandages can be worn for 3 days at a time, and their clinical trials indicate that they are highly effective in treating infected wounds. Take a look at their brochure (PDF file) for some informative and stomach-turning before and after photos.

[via Medgadget]

25th Chaos Communications Congress

July 2, 2008 by No comments


The 25th annual Chaos Communications Congress is happening December 27-30th in Berlin, Germany. They’ve just published their official call for papers. Last year’s 24C3 was incredible and we’ll take any chance we get to attend an event held by the fine folks in the CCC. We hope to see you there!

[via BoingBoing]

Flip Camera Microscope And Macro Lenses

July 1, 2008 by 5 Comments


Flip cameras are fun and easy to use, but not particularly versatile. If you’ve had poor results at macrophotography with a Flip, you might be interested in these DIY lenses. One is macroscopic lens for taking photos and video of small things, and the other is a microscope for even smaller things.

To construct the macro lens, you’ll need a pair of binoculars, some rubber bands and paper clips. Simply remove the lenses from the front of the binoculars, complete with the plastic casings that hold them. Thread a rubber band folded in half to the plastic casing and hold it in place with small segments from the paper clip. Now place the lens in front of the Flip’s lens and secure the rubber band around the flip.

The microscope’s eyepiece uses no such attachment method, simply hold it in front of the Flip. The same process can’t be used here because getting the proper focus requires it to be held at varying distances from the camera, not flush against it like the macro lens. In any case, it’s any easy mod that should have you taking pictures of bugs and other tiny things in no time. Look after the break for video of the lenses in action.

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