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Virtual fingerprints can track computer users’ movements

May 19, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Sydney, May 19 (ANI): There exists a virtual fingerprint on most computers that can monitor the online habits of individuals, found a US privacy group.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, most web browsers carry a unique signature that can help websites gather information about online activities.

While this data does not directly identify you as a person, it can be used to build a very detailed Internet profile.

“Several companies are already selling products that claim to use browser fingerprinting to help websites identify users and their online activities. This experiment is an important reality check, showing just how powerful these tracking mechanisms are,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted senior EFF technologist Peter Eckersley as saying.

Data privacy has emerged as one of the key public concerns this year with market leading companies like Google and Facebook coming under fire for making too much information about their subscribers publicly accessible.

While the spotlight has been on those companies pushing to reveal more personal data in online platforms for their own marketing purposes, most people assume their web browsing activities remain private.

However, the EFF said it had confirmed the existence of the virtual fingerprints by researching the activities of a number of volunteers who visited a dedicated website it developed.

To conduct the research, the website anonymously logged information that most websites would normally access when users visit, said the EFF.

After comparing a database collected from almost a million visitors, the EFF discovered that 84 per cent of the configuration combinations were unique and identifiable, and where browsers had Adobe Flash or Java plug-ins installed they were 94 per cent identifiable.

Although the fingerprints can change regularly, simple algorithms were able keep track of the virtual identity.

Eckersley said browser fingerprints are different to the information-gathering cookies activated when people visit many websites and could be used as a tracking mechanism against those who block cookies.

He said they may also prove much harder for investigators to trace because they leave no evidence.

“Browser fingerprinting is a powerful technique, and fingerprints must be considered alongside cookies and IP addresses when we discuss web privacy and user trackability,” said Eckersley.

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New coating process reveals hard-to-develop fingerprints

May 12, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, May 12 (ANI): A new coating process may be able to reveal hard-to-retrieve fingerprints on nonporous surfaces without altering the chemistry of the print, say researchers.

Penn State professors have developed this conformal coating process.

“As prints dry or age, the common techniques used to develop latent fingerprints, such as dusting or cyanoacrylate — SuperGlue — fuming often fail,” said Robert Shaler, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and director of Penn State”s forensic sciences program.

This happens because most processes depend on the chemistry of the fingerprints, which are made of secretions of the body and react with chemicals to produce fluorescence.

The coating process, however, looks at the geometry of the fingerprints. The conformal coating applications suggested by Shaler and Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Charles Godfrey Binder Professor in engineering science and mechanics, use the physical properties of the fingerprint, not the chemistry of the substances left behind.

The researchers used a form of physical vapor deposition — a method that uses a vacuum and allows vaporized materials to condense on a surface creating a thin film. With fingerprints, the point is to have the surface material”s ridges and valleys — topography — show up on the new surface so analysts can read them using an optical device without the necessity of chemical development or microscopy.

Forensic experts can, after the coating process, still examine the fingerprints.

“The body chemistry of the person who left the fingerprint can tell us some things,” said Shaler. “If the suspect is older or younger or a lactating mother, for example.”

So, using the coating process not only allows physical examination but also the chemical analysis of the fingerprints.

The researches tested this process using different materials such as, magnesium fluoride, chalcogenide glass and even tape.

A drawback of the process is that it can only be used on non-porous surfaces, surfaces that do not de-gas.

The researchers would also like to design a portable device that could be brought to a crime scene and produce readable fingerprints on site.

“We are in the process of redesigning the chamber and looking not just at fingerprints, but at other objects,” said Lakhtakia. “These would include bullets, cartridges, footprints, bite marks and lip impressions.” Shaler and Lakhtakia have filed a provisional patent application on this application. (ANI)

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90 percent of distant galaxies have gone undiscovered, say astronomers

March 26, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, March 26 (ANI): Astronomers, using two of the four giant 8.2-metre telescopes that make up ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), have determined that 90 percent of galaxies whose light took 10 billion years to reach us have gone undiscovered.

Astronomers frequently use the strong, characteristic “fingerprint” of light emitted by hydrogen known as the Lyman-alpha line, to probe the amount of stars formed in the very distant Universe.

Yet there have long been suspicions that many distant galaxies go unnoticed in these surveys.

The new VLT survey demonstrates for the first time that this is exactly what is happening.

Most of the Lyman-alpha light is trapped within the galaxy that emits it, and 90 percent of galaxies do not show up in Lyman-alpha surveys.

“Astronomers always knew they were missing some fraction of the galaxies in Lyman-alpha surveys, but for the first time we now have a measurement. The number of missed galaxies is substantial,” explained Matthew Hayes, the lead author of the research paper.

To figure out how much of the total luminosity was missed, Hayes and his team used the FORS camera at the VLT and a custom-built narrowband filter to measure this Lyman-alpha light, following the methodology of standard Lyman-alpha surveys.

Then, using the new HAWK-I camera, attached to another VLT Unit Telescope, they surveyed the same area of space for light emitted at a different wavelength, also by glowing hydrogen, and known as the H-alpha line.

They specifically looked at galaxies whose light has been travelling for 10 billion years, in a well-studied area of the sky, known as the GOODS-South field.

“This is the first time we have observed a patch of the sky so deeply in light coming from hydrogen at these two very specific wavelengths, and this proved crucial,” said team member Goran Ostlin.

The survey was extremely deep, and uncovered some of the faintest galaxies known at this early epoch in the life of the Universe.

The astronomers could thereby conclude that traditional surveys done using Lyman-alpha only see a tiny part of the total light that is produced, since most of the Lyman-alpha photons are destroyed by interaction with the interstellar clouds of gas and dust.

This effect is dramatically more significant for Lyman-alpha than for H-alpha light. As a result, many galaxies, a proportion as high as 90 percent, go unseen by these surveys.

“If there are ten galaxies seen, there could be a hundred there,” Hayes said. (ANI)

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Bali bombing mastermind killed in police raid

September 17, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Jakarta, Sep. 17 (ANI): Terrorist mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top was killed in a police raid on a militant hideout in Central Java on Thursday, Indonesian police have officially confirmed.

The 41-year-old Malaysian-born extremist was one of four militants killed in the raid near Solo, national police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri told reporters.

The terrorist, who was on the run for almost seven years, was identified using fingerprint analysis, Danuri said.

“He is Noordin M Top,” Danuri said, sparking a round of applause throughout the room.

Noordin led a hardline splinter group of terror organisation Jemaah Islamiah.

He was the suspected mastermind of July’s attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta that killed seven, including three Australians.

Authorities believe he also masterminded a 2003 attack on the Marriott, a 2004 attack on Australia’s embassy in Jakarta and the 2005 Bali bombings that killed four Australians.

It’s believed he also helped plan the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.Police came close to catching Noordin several times but he always managed to elude capture.

Noordin’s death will be a major setback for Islamic extremists throughout Indonesia and Southeast Asia.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s office said it was aware of reports of Top’s death.

“We are awaiting official confirmation from the Indonesian government,” Fairfax News quoted a spokesman, as saying. (ANI)

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Scientists develop ‘electronic nose’ that can sniff out toxins by changing colors

September 14, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, September 14 (ANI): A team of scientists has developed a sensor that works as an ‘electronic nose’ in sniffing out some known poisonous gases and toxins, simply by changing colors.

Support for the development and application of this electronic nose comes from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Once fully developed, the sensor could be useful in detecting high exposures to toxic industrial chemicals that pose serious health risks in the workplace or through accidental exposure.

While physicists have radiation badges to protect them in the workplace, chemists and workers who handle chemicals do not have equivalent devices to monitor their exposure to potentially toxic chemicals.

The investigators hope to be able to market the wearable sensor within a few years.

“The project fits into the overall goal of a component of the GEI Exposure Biology Program that the NIEHS has the lead on, which is to develop technologies to monitor and better understand how environmental exposures affect disease risk,” said NIEHS Director Linda Birnbaum.

“This paper brings us one step closer to having a small wearable sensor that can detect multiple airborne toxins,” she added.

Kenneth S. Suslick, the M.T. Schmidt Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his colleagues have created what they refer to as an optoelectronic nose, an artificial nose for the detection of toxic industrial chemicals (TICs) that is simple, fast, inexpensive, and works by visualizing colors.

“We have a disposable 36-dye sensor array that changes colors when exposed to different chemicals. The pattern of the color change is a unique molecular fingerprint for any toxic gas and also tells us its concentration,” said Suslick.

“By comparing that pattern to a library of color fingerprints, we can identify and quantify the TICs in a matter of seconds,” he added.

The power of this sensor to identify so many volatile toxins stems from the increased range of interactions that are used to discriminate the response of the array.

To test the application of their color sensor array, the researchers chose 19 representative examples of toxic industrial chemicals.

Chemicals such as ammonia, chlorine, nitric acid and sulfur dioxide at concentrations known to be immediately dangerous to life or health were included.

The arrays were exposed to the chemicals for two minutes.

Most of the chemicals were identified from the array color change in a number of seconds and almost 90 percent of them were detected within two minutes. (ANI)

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‘Bullet fingerprinting’ technique improves recovery rate of prints

July 13, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 13 (ANI): A team of scientists has developed ‘Bullet fingerprinting’ technology, which is a simple but effective method to visualize fingerprints even after the print itself has been removed.

The technology has been developed by Dr John Bond, from Northamptonshire Police Scientific Support Unit and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Leicester’s Forensic Research Centre, in collaboration with University scientists.

Continuing work exploring this forensic technique in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Leicester is uncovering new ways of recovering fingerprints from metal surfaces.

Researcher Alex Goddard has uncovered a natural technique that he believes is so simple, which can explain why it has been overlooked until now.

The technique involves studying the chemical and physical interactions occurring between the metal and the fingerprint sweat deposit.

Using advanced surface imaging techniques, such as an Atomic Force Microscope, nanoscale observations of fingerprinted brass samples can identify optimum conditions to promote the natural enhancement of the fingerprint, vastly improving their recovery rate.

It has also proven that components of the sweat deposit survive washing and wiping of the surface.

According to Goddard, “Once a finger has touched the metal surface, a residue remains behind. This starts to react with the metal and an image of the fingerprint can be developed by use of elevated temperature and humidity, with the resultant image becoming a permanent feature on the surface of the metal.”

“Currently, fingerprint recovery from bullets is very low; less than 1 percent. This uses a natural process and even if it only leads to small increase in success rate, then that would be significant,” he said.

“Previous recovery methods include applying powder to the material which can actually damage the evidence,” said Goddard.

“This new technique promotes a naturally occurring process which does not involve adding anything to, or damaging, the evidence. Instead, it employs heat and humidity to promote the enhancement of the fingerprint image.

There are also indications that it could be used after other techniques have failed, perhaps as a last resort,” he added. (ANI)

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Pak Police poorly trained, ill equipped to handle Taliban onslaught

July 6, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Islamabad, July 6 (ANI): The Pakistani police force is underpaid, poorly trained and ill-equipped to handle the Taliban onslaught, as the army drives them from their strongholds in Swat and surrounding areas.

Experts say the Taliban has now stepped up their attacks on the police because they find them far easier targets than the military, which has employed helicopter gunships, tanks and heavy artillery to push the Taliban out of Swat.

Talat Masood, a military analyst, said the government had been slow to train and equip the police for a wave of attacks.

“The police in this situation are not trained, equipped or geared to fight insurgency,” said Malik Naveed Khan, the Inspector General of the NWFP police.

“It’s a very serious war. You’re fighting the shadows of an invisible army,” the Chicago Tribune quoted Khan, as saying.

“For a force of 50,000, Khan’s department has 7,500 bullet proof vests and 17,000 automatic rifles. The department lacks explosives-detection equipment, a computerised fingerprint database and updated ballistic lab equipment,” the paper reported.

The microscopes that technicians use to conduct ballistics examinations, Khan said, “are the same ones used in high schools.”

“The department has 12 armoured personnel carriers, only three of which function. They are Russian-made and from the 1960s. They’re so old that we have to put a mechanic inside while they run. Every 3 kilometres, they break down,” Khan said.

Sub-Inspector Naseem Hayat said that he is fighting a war he knows police should not be asked to. With a handful of officers, he spends his days and nights opening car trunks, never knowing whether the next vehicle that pulls up is the one primed to explode.

“We are on the front lines. We know this is not our job. But we have been ordered to do this, to check every vehicle. That’s why we do it,” he said.

The Taliban focuses its sights on police stations and checkpoints; police commanders know it takes more than fighting spirit to fend off the terrorists. (ANI)

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British scientists crack swine flu code as world tally rises to 2,384

May 9, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, May 9 (ANI): British scientists announced they had worked out the full genetic code for the virus, even as the World Health Organisation (WHO) increased its global tally of confirmed swine flu cases to over 2,300.

Five new cases were diagnosed in the UK on Friday. There are now 39 confirmed cases in the UK.

Mexico remains the worst affected country, with more than 1,100 laboratory-confirmed human cases of H1N1 virus influenza, including 42 deaths. The United States has reported nearly 900 laboratory-confirmed human cases, including two deaths. Another 22 countries have confirmed cases but no deaths, reports The Telegraph.

The latest figures came as British Health Secretary Alan Johnson said the Health Protection Agency, which monitors infectious diseases, had fully mapped the genetic code of the virus.

He said this would help scientists to understand how the virus operates and to identify the parts that can be used to manufacture a vaccine.

Johnson said: “A significant step towards protecting the world’s health against swine flu has been taken. We now look to the vaccine industry to produce the required quantities of vaccine as quickly as possible.”

The entire genetic fingerprint and sequence of the swine flu virus will now be analysed to learn how the virus behaves as it infects individuals. (ANI)

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New imaging tool could improve cancer diagnosis

April 15, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Technique designed to give better look inside a cell

* Could help determine how to treat cancers

* Researchers used dye-containing nanoparticle probes

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO, April 14 (Reuters) – A new imaging technique that uses tiny, dye-containing particles to “fingerprint” proteins within a single cell may lead to better ways to diagnose and treat cancer, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

If the technique succeeds on a larger scale, it could improve the ability not only to diagnose cancers, but to determine how aggressive a tumor is and how likely it is to respond to therapy.

“We could use it for diagnosis and maybe to help plan an appropriate treatment for a specific indication,” said Cathy Shachaf, a researcher at Stanford University whose study appears in the Public Library of Science Journal PLoS One.

Shachaf said the effort is designed to give doctors a better look at the machinery inside a cell.

“Different types of cells are active in cancer,” Shachaf said. “What we tried to do is develop technology to be able to look at the proteins active in a single cell to able to define and distinguish different types of cancer cells from each other.”

She said current cell imaging technology known as flow cytometry uses antibodies tagged with fluorescent dye to detect proteins, which light up as they flow through a beam of light.

But the images can become muddy if there are too many overlapping colors, limiting the number of proteins that can be imaged simultaneously to about 20.

Rather than simple fluorescent dyes, the Stanford team used special nanoparticle probes created by Intel Corp (INTC.O) that give off distinct signals.

“Instead of giving us a very broad, smooth spectrum they give us sharp fingerprints,” Shachaf said.

Shachaf’s team used the technology to detect two distinct cancer proteins simultaneously, but she said they have imaged as many as nine in the lab.

“What we’ve done is shown we can use these particles to detect specific proteins in a single cell,” She said.

Shachaf said the team hopes eventually to be able to image as many as 100 distinct features inside a cell.

“The goal of this is to outdo current technology,” she said.

(Editing by Maggie Fox and Eric Beech)

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New imaging tool could improve cancer diagnosis

April 15, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

CHICAGO (Reuters) – A new imaging technique that uses tiny, dye-containing particles to “fingerprint” proteins within a single cell may lead to better ways to diagnose and treat cancer, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

If the technique succeeds on a larger scale, it could improve the ability not only to diagnose cancers, but to determine how aggressive a tumor is and how likely it is to respond to therapy.

Shachaf said the effort is designed to give doctors a better look at the machinery inside a cell.

She said current cell imaging technology known as flow cytometry uses antibodies tagged with fluorescent dye to detect proteins, which light up as they flow through a beam of light.

But the images can become muddy if there are too many overlapping colors, limiting the number of proteins that can be imaged simultaneously to about 20.

Rather than simple fluorescent dyes, the Stanford team used special nanoparticle probes created by Intel Corp that give off distinct signals.

“Instead of giving us a very broad, smooth spectrum they give us sharp fingerprints,” Shachaf said.

Shachaf’s team used the technology to detect two distinct cancer proteins simultaneously, but she said they have imaged as many as nine in the lab.

“What we’ve done is shown we can use these particles to detect specific proteins in a single cell,” She said.

Shachaf said the team hopes eventually to be able to image as many as 100 distinct features inside a cell.

“The goal of this is to outdo current technology,” she said.

(Editing by Maggie Fox and Eric Beech)

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Simple bedside test to diagnose chronic back pain

April 7, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 7 (ANI): Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have devised a simple bedside test that can effectively diagnose chronic back pain.

According to the study, the new test is better than currently used techniques in identifying specific symptoms and signs that could signify underlying pain mechanisms.

“Currently clinicians measure pain only by asking how bad it is, using scales from mild to moderate to severe or asking patients to rate their pain from 1 to 10,” said Dr Joachim Scholz, of the Neural Plasticity Research Group in the MGH Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care, lead author of the study.

“This approach misses key characteristics that reflect the mechanisms causing the pain,” Scholz added.

Dr Clifford Woolf, director of the Neural Plasticity Research Group said that by evaluating individual components of pain the new method allows the creation of a ‘pain fingerprint’ for each patient.

During the study, the investigators enrolled a group of 187 patients with chronic pain caused by a known condition.

These participants received an extensive medical history and physical examination, including 23 simple tests that could be conducted at the bedside or in an office visit.

With the help of Standardized Evaluation of Pain (StEP), the researchers identified distinct association patterns of pain-related symptoms and signs.

The StEP includes a set of 6 questions and 10 physical tests that best discriminated between neuropathic and nonneuropathic pain.

Not only was the 10- to 15-minute StEP assessment able to accurately determine whether or not a participant’s back pain was neuropathic, it also was superior to an existing screening test for neuropathic pain and even to MR imaging of the spine, which can be misleading since many people have visible degeneration of spinal disks with little or no pain.

“The treatment of neuropathic and nonneuropathic pain is quite different, and if a diagnosis is wrong, patients may receive treatment, including surgery, that does not improve their pain,” said Scholz.

“We showed that StEP is a valuable diagnostic tool for low back pain and will conduct further studies to determine the usefulness of our clinical approach in other types of pain.

“The critical test will be seeing how patients with different subtypes of pain respond to different treatments, something we hope to examine in the very near future,” Scholz added.

The report appears in the open-access journal PLoS Medicine. (ANI)

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Urine test may help detect cancer

April 5, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 5 (ANI): A researcher from Missouri University has devised a method of detecting cancer with the help of urine samples.

Dr. Yinfa Ma has developed a method for pre-cancer screening and hopes to be able to predict types of cancer as well as severity.

“Cancer is the second-highest cause of death among all diseases,” said Ma, a Curators’ Teaching Professor of chemistry at Missouri University of Science and Technology.

“Early diagnosis of cancer is crucial, but not many people want to go to the hospital to undergo costly, invasive cancer screening,” he added.

During the study, the researchers identified six pteridine derivatives, compounds that help regulate the metabolism of cells, in the urine samples.

The levels of some pteridines increased significantly if there is a tumour inside the body.

Ma also discovered a molecule, called oncopterin that exists in the urine of cancer patients but not in healthy human samples.

He said that the oncopterin level in urine indicates whether cancer is likely to develop, and varying levels of the six pteridines can actually provide a “fingerprint” of the type of cancer.

“I won’t give up. “I will continue to work on this project until we have succeeded and can market the instrument to save people’s lives,” he added. (ANI)

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New 3D software to count tigers for conservation

March 13, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, March 13 (ANI): A new software developed with help from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) will allow researchers to rapidly identify individual tigers by creating a three-dimensional (3D) model using photos taken by remote cameras, which would help in their conservation.

The new software, developed by Conservation Research Ltd., creates a 3D model from scanned photos using algorithms similar to fingerprint-matching software used by criminologists.

It may also help identify the origin of tigers from confiscated skins.

Researchers currently calculate tiger populations by painstakingly reviewing hundreds of photos of animals caught by camera “traps” and then matching their individual stripe patterns, which are unique to each animal.

Using a formula developed by renowned tiger expert Ullas Karanth of WCS, researchers accurately estimate local populations by how many times individual tigers are “recaptured” by the camera trap technique.

It is expected that the new software will allow researchers to rapidly identify animals, which in turn could speed up tiger conservation efforts.

“This new software will make it much easier for conservationists to identify individual tigers and estimate populations,” said Ullas Karanth, Senior Conservation Scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society and one of the study’s co-authors.

“The fundamentals of tiger conservation are knowing how many tigers live in a study area before you can start to measure success,” he added.

Researches were also able to use the software to identify the origin of confiscated tiger skins based on solely on photos. (ANI)

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Miami student discovers rare Abraham Lincoln fingerprint

February 23, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Feb 23 (ANI): A student at Miami University has found a fingerprint, belonging to Abraham Lincoln, while working on a class project.

Lydia Smith is a first year psychology major from Granville, Ohio.

She was transcribing a letter written by Lincoln on October 5, 1863 for a class project when she noticed a smudge, which she suspected, could be the 16th president’s thumbprint.

The 1863 letter was among hundreds of miscellaneous letters stored in Miami’s Walter Havighurst Special Collections section of King Library and uncovered this fall.

The Papers of Abraham Lincoln, a project of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, reviewed and confirmed the print, making it the second rare fingerprint of the 16th president housed at Miami’s libraries.

The collection at Miami includes the first authenticated fingerprint of Lincoln with a signature known to historians since it was first verified in 1957.

Lydia Smith’s discovery of the second fingerprint has historians taking notice.

“Miami’s collection includes the first certified document that provides a critical comparison for us,” Science Daily quoted John A. Lupton, associate director of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln project, as saying.

“I have seen a number of fingerprints that I assumed to be Lincoln’s, but never more than one in one repository. The fact that Miami has two makes it fascinating,” he added. (ANI)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: abraham lincoln, agency, ANI, class, collection, collections, comparison, daily, director, discovery, document, fact, fall, Feb, fingerprint, Granville, historic, illinois, John A. Lupton, king, letter, library, lincoln, Lydia Smith, Miami, museum, notice, number, October, Ohio, papers, preservation, president, presidential, print, project, psychology, repository, Science, section, signature, smudge, student, thumbprint, University, Walter Havighurst, Washington, year

FBI looking for over 3000 additional staff

January 9, 2009 By Rajiv Gupta Leave a Comment

Washington, Jan.8 (ANI): The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is seeking to fill thousands of posts as it embarks on the biggest recruitment drive in its 101-year history.

According to the Scotsman, the vacancies include 850 special agents, besides a further 2,100 “professional staff positions”.

Jobs include intelligence analysts, fingerprint experts, language specialists and electronics technicians, presumably for help with wire-tapping and other hi-tech eavesdropping.

“Your country needs you.This is a great time to apply for a great job,” the paper quoted FBI spokesman Richard Kolko, as saying.

Perks include healthcare benefits and up to five weeks” annual holiday. However, the job description makes no mention of dark glasses, trenchcoats or trilby hats.

FBI officials said that they were on a hiring spree to counter new threats to internal security, especially from cyber crime, domestic terrorism and blue-collar criminals.

They said applicants with language skills and computer expertise would be welcome.

“We”re looking for professionals in a wide variety of fields who have a deep desire to help protect our nation from terrorists, spies, and others who wish us harm,” the Scotsman quoted John Raucci, the assistant director of the FBI”s human resources division, as saying.

Applicants must be US citizens and pass extensive background screening, including interviews with family, friends and former colleagues, and will be expected to uphold the agency”s motto of fidelity, bravery and integrity. (ANI)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: according, agents, ANI, annual, applicants, bravery, colleagues, Computer, criminals, deep, description, division, experts, family, fbi, fingerprint, harm, help, hiring, history, include, integrity, job, kolko, language, mention, motto, officials, others, positions, posts, professional, protect, quoted, raucci, recruitment, resources, saying, scotsman, screening, security, seeking, skills, technicians, threats, trenchcoats, uphold, welcome, wide, wish

Novel software scans listeners’ brains to discern who said what

November 15, 2008 By Rajesh Leave a Comment

London, November 14: Dutch researchers have developed a mind-reading software program that can scan a brain to decipher the sounds spoken to a person, and even who is saying them.

Neuroscientists at Maastricht University in The Netherlands say that they trained the software by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to track the brain activity of seven people, while they heard three different speakers saying simple vowel sounds.

Telling about their observations, the researchers said that each speaker and each sound created a distinctive “neural fingerprint” in a listener”s auditory cortex, the brain region that deals with hearing.

The team said that they utilised those fingerprints to create rules that could decode future activity, and determine both who was being listened to, and what they were saying.

“We have (created) a sort of speech-recognition device which is completely based on the brain activity of the listener,” New Scientist magazine quoted Elia Formisano of Maastricht University, who led the group, as saying.

The researchers are of the opinion that recent advances in fMRI’s application may someday be extended to identifying what a person is looking at from their brain activity.

“This is the first study in which we can really distinguish two human voices, or two specific sounds,” Formisano said.

The researcher said that the study also helped the group make new discoveries about how the brain processes speech.

The team observed that sounds made by any person trigger the same voice fingerprint in the brain, and similarly a given vowel sound produces the same fingerprint, independent of the speaker.

Formisano says that such fingerprint help the software recognise combinations of speakers and sounds that it has not encountered before.

It should be possible to teach the system how to recognise all the component sounds of speech, and then recognise full words, the researcher adds.

“Vowel sounds are not meaningful, but they are language. These are the building blocks of language,” he says.

The researchers are presently trying to develop a system that will be capable of recognising more complex sounds without training, even in noisy environments.

A research article on this work has been published in the journal Science. (ANI)

Filed Under: Technology News Tagged With: even in noisy environments., fingerprint, fingerprint in the brain, fMRI’s application, full words, independent of the speaker, New Scientist magazine, software recognise, sounds without training, the journal Science

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