SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Wanted criminals have already been tracked using biometric imaging, but now an Irish company is targeting dairy cows with a new form of facial recognition.
Irish company Cainthus appears to be ‘raising the steaks’ in facial recognition with an unusual plan to roll out the technology to dairy farms around the world.
The data solutions company based in Dublin has partnered with agriculture giant Cargill to produce a predictive imaging system that can identify cows from their facial features and hide patterns. The software will also provide dairy farmers with data on their animal’s temperature and food intake.
I'm definitely bullish on this idea.
Source: https://www.rt.com/news/417752-cow-facial-recognition-cargill/
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Monday February 05 2018, @04:34PM (8 children)
I read the headline: "...Irish company rolls out cow fecal recognition." Which I thought was quite impressive, pointless, and disgusting.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 05 2018, @05:00PM (2 children)
Cow shit's actually not all that revolting, relative to many other kinds of shit. Herbivore shit, as a general rule, is less disgusting to have to be around than most other varieties.
The above does not apply to omnivores who choose a herbivore diet, vegans. Your shit does still in fact stink. You prove so regularly with your drastically increased output of ass-gas.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 05 2018, @05:46PM
Slam! Slam! Slam! The man continued pummeling the ingredient with his fists and vigorously moving his body. The recipe he was using was simple, but tedious. Slam! Slam! Slam! It was almost done. Slam! Slam! Slam! At last, the ingredient was transformed into the final result. It was time to take out the resulting decoration to the guests.
A man was seen bringing out a naked woman's corpse to the guests in his dining room.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 05 2018, @07:01PM
Speaking of bullshit
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Monday February 05 2018, @05:08PM
Don't give them ideas!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 05 2018, @05:15PM
Raised cattle farm with uncles also in same business.
Facial recognition would save money over today’s ear tags an barcode scanners. Or RFID. Would help automate milking parlars. Yes they automated today even with merry go round measure of milk production per animal. Prevent re-entry of same cow. In breeding knowing whom by who. Stock yard sales tracking animals
Add to that, fecal recognition you can determine animal health worms fungui even what has been ingested
Win all the way around because cost lowering. Less meds.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 05 2018, @05:23PM
Man! You fucked that up! You were supposed to come out with a Emily Nutella routine...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday February 05 2018, @06:54PM
Standard progression of science.
The first hypothesis was to work on cow fecal recognition, but then they realized that not modeling as a spherical cow in a vacuum opened up more advanced possibilities.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday February 05 2018, @07:33PM
Here in Illinois cow shit is called "cow pies" and they have contests to see who can throw them the farthest. Fecal recognition? That's bullshit!
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 05 2018, @05:03PM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday February 05 2018, @05:33PM (2 children)
mistake --> Miss Steak
We're talking female bovines here, not irish.
Would a Dyson sphere [soylentnews.org] actually work?
(Score: 2, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Monday February 05 2018, @08:53PM (1 child)
Let me tell you, I'd recognize Elizabeth Beck anywhere. I have nightmares about that disgusting whack-job. She was crazy! And she represented her clients very poorly. She lost the case and I got legal fees, OK? If she needed a break to breast pump or whatever, I mean -- well, that's unusual, we're in a legal proceeding -- but you know I've had more unusual things happen. But I'll tell you what she wanted to do. She wanted to breast-pump in front of me during a deposition. And I said, that is just horrendous that somebody can suggest that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @01:25AM
In the past you have said that you favored "waterboarding". Does that mean it is ok with you if Mueller "waterboards" you?
(Score: 4, Touché) by Grishnakh on Monday February 05 2018, @05:43PM (18 children)
Wouldn't it be simpler to just put RFID tags on the cows' ears?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday February 05 2018, @05:56PM (7 children)
Wouldn't it be simpler to use a horse and buggy rather than an immensely complex machine, loaded with technology, to get you places?
The thing is, once it is reliable and affordable, you take it for granted and accept it as "simple". Now people see Chromebooks as "simple". Take one back to 1980 and it would be amazing beyond belief. People would say wouldn't it be simpler to use pencil and paper?
As in my post below, when we get affordable reliable AI security cameras, and other AI computer vision applications (eg, is the toast done properly), we'll take them as simple. The technology eventually, yes really, will be almost disposable, like pocket calculators are today. Let alone the amazing transistor radios that preceded pocket calculators. There was a time when today's disposable ball point pen was an expensive luxury item. (See here [wikipedia.org] where ballpoint pen in 1945 was worth $170 in today's dollars.)
Would a Dyson sphere [soylentnews.org] actually work?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday February 05 2018, @05:57PM (3 children)
Just to add: you could buy a Chromebook today for what that 1945 ball point pen cost (in today's dollars).
Would a Dyson sphere [soylentnews.org] actually work?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday February 05 2018, @06:20PM (2 children)
The 1945 ball point pen could conceivably have had equal or greater ROI in 1945 compared to a Chromebook today. Sign checks, documents, contracts, draft letters or even a book - the Chromebook has tremendous potential, but what are most of them really used for? How much do they actually benefit their owners?
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2, Insightful) by tftp on Monday February 05 2018, @06:55PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday February 05 2018, @08:20PM
Exactly, most ballpoint pens today never do anything of value, but in 1945 the usefulness ratio of ballpoint pens was much higher.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Monday February 05 2018, @06:24PM
You're comparing apples and oranges. A Chromebook can do things you can't even imagine doing with pen and paper.
According to TFS, this machine vision system's purpose is simply to identify individual cows, so you can track them individually. You don't need bovine facial recognition to do that, you just need eartags, like they've been using for ages. What does the vision system do that you can't do with eartags?
As for horse and buggy vs. cars, let's compare cars and walking. Which is better? Well, if I just need to go across the street and back, the more complicated solution (car) is pretty stupid: you're expending far more resources, and dealing with far more complexity (including maintenance), just to do something that you can do just as quickly, or perhaps more quickly, without any technology at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 05 2018, @07:24PM (1 child)
Considering that RFID can find a cow anywhere they may be rather than requiring the cow to be facing a camera, RFID would be more effective and cheaper.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday February 05 2018, @08:06PM
If I read correctly, the vision system can recognize the other end of the cow as well. That is, the hide patterns.
Would a Dyson sphere [soylentnews.org] actually work?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday February 05 2018, @06:17PM (9 children)
Agree, that (why not RFID?) was my first thought, though facial recognition might be easier to use in certain environments / use cases.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday February 05 2018, @06:35PM (4 children)
That's what I want to know. What does facial recognition get you that simple RFID doesn't?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday February 05 2018, @06:49PM (1 child)
You don't have to implant the cows and then irradiate them all the time. You observe their faces, which is more respectful.
By showing a more humane attitude towards the cows, you give a giant middle finger to the Vegans.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday February 05 2018, @09:30PM
You could spray paint a QR code on its side, and when the paint starts looking messed up due to growth, rain, whatever, then an automated system spray paints a new copy of the QR code on the other side. You could repeat this for awhile if each code isn't too large.
Of course this might mess up the leather. Then again messing up the leather, brings up the whole topic of leather, which the Vegans are probably going to complain about for holiness points.
I would be impressed if this technology could be extended to animals that aren't easily ear tagged, perhaps chicken. They all look the same to me, which probably sounds racist of me, but whatever.
I think we're missing the point of proper use of technology. You can externally track cows if you want to control them, but augmented reality glasses are a more humane solution, you want the cow to walk cheerfully into the slaughterhouse, you use the augmented reality cow goggles to trick the cow into seeing delicious hay or whatever cow pr0n looks like and it'll job right up all internally self motivated.
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Monday February 05 2018, @07:04PM
Who said you only had to do one of those?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday February 05 2018, @08:24PM
Identification of cows you haven't tagged yet... identification using a camera system (which has many other beneficial uses) instead of an RFID reader station which is basically useless without implanted and cataloged tags... I do feel like I'm stretching here.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Monday February 05 2018, @07:03PM (3 children)
You can remove RFID tags. Have you tried removing a cow's face without anyone noticing? This is partly to combat crime when cattle and/or other livestock are stolen,
Secondly, you can identify cattle at a distance providing that you can get an acceptable image of its face. A RFID tag is very limited range.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday February 05 2018, @09:16PM
There's a very old Irish drama broadcast by the BBC about Ireland "Ballykissangel" (apparently the name of the village) and one of the more comic plots is the Irish govt implemented old age pensions for farmers by not trying very hard to audit farmers claiming fake sheep subsidy credits and the whacky villagers manufacture sheep out of wood and art supplies for an old guy (which ironically sounds pretty stupid; sheep cost about $200 on the hoof and sculpting art supplies and labor likely exceed $200 for fake sheeps...)
Anyway the point of this funny 80s BBC sitcom story is I"m sure plenty of taxing and farming subsidy authorities will be scanning car and drone and aircraft photos for anomalies.
As a side issue one of the most interesting uses of non-contact visual livestock identification is stuff like health monitoring. Look at old bessie's FitCow graph, she hasn't walked 20 feet today, check and see if she hurt her leg/foot/hoof.
Another fascinating idea applies to self driving cars and visual navigation systems, Oh see that is cow 1247149 so I "know" my self driving car cam is in front of address XYZ. Maybe more fun for self driving tractors.
A final interesting self-driving vehicle topic is you get 20, 30, 40 spy cams watching the farm as your self driving tractor wanders about and the algorithm can put everything together such that it knows you got 75 cows and the fixed monitoring cams have pinpointed all 75 cows and none are about to get run over, so clearly that blur on the self driving tractor camera is the sheepdog or a bear or something non-cow anyway. You could also draw a social network of cows, which must be handy for something (tinder for cows aka cow-der for use as STD tracking, or disease tracking in general, or some creepy "know your meat" for the ultimate hipster cooking experience)
(Score: 2) by Translation Error on Monday February 05 2018, @09:48PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday February 06 2018, @09:22AM
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday February 05 2018, @05:46PM
In Sci Fi, you sometimes see udderly amazing levels of technology in ordinary everyday things. Nevermind the cpu power that runs these neural nets, and learns to recognize animals. The usefulness of a practical application will drive the miniaturization and ruggedness so that a "cow recognizer" is just a box you buy at the hardware store. It gives a whole new meaning to "electric eye".
Next, you'll see a cow recognizer attached every five or six fence posts to keep detailed track of the inventory. Alert the owner if an unfamiliar or unauthorized animal is in the area. It could almost be a scene where Luke and Uncle Owen are bargaining for used droids.
Put one in the front yard to notify you in case a cow is where it doesn't belong. Or an unauthorized person.
Next security cameras get smart and recognize whether a person is committing an obvious crime. Stealing a box off your front porch. It can swivel, get the license plate, and alert the police, with attached video. This would unemploy bored security workers who aren't staring at their security monitors constantly.
Republicans can put AI cameras in people's bedrooms to ensure nobody commits unauthorized sexual acts or behaviors. To keep us all safe.
Would a Dyson sphere [soylentnews.org] actually work?