Sunday, November 24, 2024

The Obtain: facial recognition for migrant kids, and Japan’s megaquake

The US Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) plans to gather and analyze pictures of the faces of migrant kids on the border in a bid to enhance facial recognition know-how, MIT Expertise Assessment can reveal.

The know-how has historically not been utilized to kids, largely as a result of coaching knowledge units of actual kids’s faces are few and much between, and include both low-quality photographs drawn from the web or small pattern sizes with little variety. Such limitations replicate the numerous sensitivities concerning privateness and consent in terms of minors. 

In observe, the brand new DHS plan might successfully resolve that drawback. However, past issues about privateness, transparency, and accountability, some specialists additionally fear about testing and creating new applied sciences utilizing knowledge from a inhabitants that has little recourse to offer—or withhold—consent. Learn the total story.

—Eileen Guo

What Japan’s “megaquake” warning actually tells us

On August 8, at 16:42 native time, a magnitude-7.1 earthquake shook southern Japan. The temblor, originating off the shores of mainland island of Kyūshū, was felt by almost one million individuals throughout the area, and initially, the specter of a tsunami emerged. However solely a diminutive wave swept ashore, buildings remained upright, and no one died. The disaster was over as rapidly because it started.

However then, one thing new occurred. The Japan Meteorological Company, a authorities group, issued a ‘megaquake advisory’ for the primary time. It was partly issued as a result of it’s attainable that the magnitude-7.1 quake is a foreshock – a precursory quake – to a far bigger one, a tsunami-making monster that might kill 1 / 4 of one million individuals.

The excellent news, for now, is that scientists suppose it is extremely unlikely that that magnitude-7.1 quake is a prelude to a cataclysm. However the slim chance stays that it was a foreshock to one thing significantly worse. Learn the total story.

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