Facial Recognition - Does this work for anyone?

I can't get the Facial Recognition to work on login, it hasn't worked once since I got the M17x...Does anyone have a work around for this?

 

The facial recognition program is very finicky. 90% of the time it doesnt work for me either. I think the face needs to be high contrast...
Anyway, i uninstalled it.

 

It works for me. Make sure you center your self in front of the camera and be as still as possible. Make sure your chin is at the bottom of that alienhead shape that searches for your face. I kind of think its gimmicky, but hey thats me.

 

Yeah I agree...more of a gimmick then anything else. I get it to work as long as I don't change my look to much. In other words if it recognized me with a hat on, it typically won't recognize me without a hat on...of course lighting effects it as well. So I'd say I probably use it 50 percent of the time, the other 50 percent I just type in my password.

 

It is supposed to learn your face (under different lighting, looks etc) if i log in from the same place i did before (lighting plays a major part) it works... some times its so fast that i dont even see my face on the screen and i am logged in... still its hit or miss most of the times.... So yea a biometric finger print reader would have made MUCH more sense...
PS: I have learned NOT to use it while friends are around.... after all you dont want to spoil the first impression... ;-)

 

reduce the sensitivity to lowest and you'll get 90% or more success rate.

 

it "works" a little too well. i had it tuned for my face and it wouldn't trigger on my wife or the in-laws.

i went to a client and 3 of the 4 guys i was working with could unlock my pc. if i turned the sensitivity up, it stopped recognizing me.

turned it off...

 

make sure to show your face to the cam
no,seriously for me it's a loss of time in the boot period and i think a good ol password is better.

 

Hello. My name is Darin - I work for Sensible Vision, the creators of AlienSense. I would very much like to offer my assistance to everyone here. Recognition in AlienSense is, of course, not 100% (no biometric could be while maintaining accuracy) but in my experience it's typically quite fast and accurate. I'm confident that I can help to address concerns, learn more about how the software functions, and to improve performance. FastAccess (the Dell version of AlienSense) actually had it's genesis in high security areas such as hospitals and banks where the demand for both accuracy and speed were both very high. It's with that experience that we created FastAccess (and AlienSense). The goal was to create a real-world usage, genuinely beneficial tool instead of yet another toy.

I'll start addressing some individual concerns in later posts, but first I'd like to provide some general info from our online knowledgebase regarding recognition performance. Hopefully I can post this link.
Why doesn’t FastAccess recognize my face and log me into Windows every time?

How can I improve recognition performance?

How does the learning algorithm work?

I look forward to working with you all.

 

Although decent lighting is, of course, required (it works through a camera after all), the key to good recognition is to simply make sure that the blue "alien head" outline is visible when you log in. If it's visible, then the software can see your face which means it can try to recognize it and if recognition doesn't happen, it can learn more about your face (acquire additional biometric templates) when you type your password. Without the blue outline, all bets are off and performance will be poor.

With the blue outline consistently visible and a bit of training (a few manual logins), recognition performance should improve quite quickly. On my system I routinely get between 93% and 98% recognition in my office. Most of those recognitions happen in less than 2 seconds.

 

Of course a "false postive" or incorrect recognition is of serious concern. Given the software's background in high security areas, we had to design this to be nearly impossible. Although I won't say that anything is COMPLETELY impossible (almost nothing ever is), most of the time that a false appears to happen, it may actually be something else. Here's the FAQ that goes into more depth.
It recognized me as someone else!

If in your case you prove to have had a real one, there are diagnostics that I can assist with for further analysis. Please contact me directly using any of the publicly available addresses on our site. We will, of course, share any insights back here on the forum.

 

Although reducing the sensitivity may increase recognition rate a little bit, it should not actually have a dramatic affect and is generally not recommended. I actually suspect that what you're seeing is the normal learning process happening at the same time that you happened to drop the sensitivity. 90% plus recognition in a given area is absolutely expected after a few manual logins as long as the blue outline is clearly visible. Simply placing your hands on the keyboard can also provide a surprisingly large improvement - especially at first while it's still getting to know you.

 

All this is very interesting, I'll take a look at the links and give it another try.

Thanks for the info!

 

Yes thanks for all the info.
It works very well for me in alot of condition its, its even adjusted to me growing facial hair over the past few months

 

Funnily enough, this is one of the only things that works for me, I tend not to want to use it because of how slow the motion cap seems on screen from the webcam. It's weird, because it flys in skype no problem, but when I use aliensense, it stutters whenever I move my head.

PS: I get much better results with a shaved head, my hair was always too messy for it I believe.

 

@svrep
so once u format ur pc all is gone right? is there some way to backup these template files used to recognize the user which were acquired over several months?? if that feature is available then it makes sense to train it..

 

Thank you all for the kind words. I really do hope some of the extra information is helpful and I genuinely want to see it working for everyone to the full potential that I know it has.

Heh...I do like the image of it working better with a shaved head!
Technically, it should mostly exclude hair because it changes too often. If it's really hanging in front of your face then that's another story of course....

Regarding the slow frame rate on the login screen, AlienSense does analyze video at only 4 frames per second (plenty for it's purpose) but it sounds like you're seeing something potentially even slower? Does this happen just after a reboot or even if you lock the desktop? I ask because after a reboot, video performance can sometimes be a bit chunky due to other things loading at the same time. After a desktop lock, however, you should get a different look at it. Let me know.

 

Excellent question! Your are correct that at the moment there is no way to save your biometric template database. This is actually a security precaution - we don't want those templates to function at all if they're moved from your machine (and they won't). Fortunately, it's been my typical experience that most of the learning actually happens within the first few manual logins. Additional facial learning continues indefinitely - you're correct there - and although small improvements in recognition rate may continue for a while, after some time most of the learning ends up being for the purpose of keeping up with any appearance or environmental changes.

This is all to say that starting from scratch isn't actually as bad as it sounds...I do it myself every few days as we create and test new versions and my recognition rate still stays quite high.

 

Hi Darin.

Thanks for stepping up here. I'll take a look at this over the weekend when I get back home...

 

Thanks Darin for the reply...

 

If only Dell/Alienware would do the same think and try to fix problems together(dream on i know i know )
most of the times we encounter recognition problems due to poor lightning.I say it's a nice app but far from being a must have!
Also Darin your help is much apreciated!!

 

Darin - one of the only problems I have is that I use this machine on and off a domain and therefore have different profiles...how does the software determine which profile it logs me into now that I have the 2 logins on this machine tied to the same face?

 

Works 99% for me and not for any "strange" face

 

My recignition hasn't failed me once yet.
It's one of those things on my m17x i love the most, it's usually the firs 'OOOOOH!' 'AAAAAHHHH' and 'OMG THATS AWESOME' moments i get when someone comes by and sees my alienware.

That's before the other oooh's and aaah's when i actually have it run stuff.

I'm a gimmick guy, i know ^^

 

You're most welcome. We do try to provide the best support possible.

Good point about lighting. There's no doubt that decent lighting is very helpful. One hint is to be sure that you have the "FaceBright" feature enabled. If you don't have this feature, contact me privately through a publicly available email address on our website and I'll help you get it back.

FaceBright is designed to turn the entire login screen white which throws additional light on the face (think the iPhone "flashlight" app on steroids) . Depending on the size and brightness of the screen as well as your distance from it, of course, it can definitely help with recognition in marginal lighting situations where it would normally be difficult to expose the face well.

 

Wow - lots of good questions these days. I hope my answers are sufficient to meet your needs.

In your case you'll probably want to pick just one account to use with face recognition. If you "enroll" your face into two different accounts then you're absolutely correct that it will be a coin flip which one gets logged into when you're recognized. Here's the FAQ that addresses the issue in a bit more detail. Note that "FastAccess" and "AlienSense" are interchangeable in this case.
I use multiple Windows accounts on one computer. Can I still use FastAccess?

Basically, just stay out of view when you're logging into the non-enrolled account. If you accidentally do enroll yourself into both then you can delete one biometric database in the "Advanced" section of the GUI.

 

Heh heh...you can imagine how much fun this is to demo at trade shows!

Although we certainly strive to - and I believe succeed in - making a serious tool that provides very real security and convenience benefits, it's hard to deny that it also has more than a little "cool factor"!

 

I'm not normally slow on the uptake, but when you say "a publicly available email address". Are you refering to using the "DellSupport@" address or am I somehow missing the page that directs me to a more applicable email address? I really liked the FaceBright feature the first time that it appeared as an option through the login options, but a later version of command center wiped mine out and I have been unable to find the option again, I really want it back since I very often log in from a dimly lit room.

I have to say that I for one have been really pleased with the aliensense software. I use it constantly. And I'm very impressed that you came to the forums to answer our questions and help improve our experience. Far too often we feel abandoned when it comes to getting answers from the companies we purchase from. Hats off to you.

One last thing, idk if anyone else has experienced this, but I have had several instances where using the Windows Update has caused my aliensense proile to reset and I have to start over on the learning process again. I'm not sure if it is just Aliensense that resets or possibly the entire Command Center, but Aliensense is the thing that I notice first as I'm sitting there waiting for it to log me in after a reboot and I finally decide to use my password. Then I am greeted by a popup window that tells me this is my first login using aliensense and I should configure it. Is this something that you have seen before?

Thanks again for all your help.

 

You got it exactly. Any of the email addresses on our site will be routed to me so I can help you get FaceBright back. If you can handle FTP and some command line stuff, it should be no problem. It's just a bit much (and involves sending a particular file) to do on the open forum.

Thanks! We may not always succeed, but we do always try to provide good support.

And just when you think there's nothing new to see.....
No, I actually haven't seen that one before. If anyone else has ideas, I'd be open to theories. You may also contact me directly about this one to see if our standard diagnostics are of any help. My only question would be to ask if you've run any registry cleaners? This is not a symptom that I would expect from a bad registry cleaner, but you never know what you'll get if your registry keys are messed with.

 

Mine works great, I log in at work several times a day and it doesnt recognize my coworkers. YOU MUST HAVE GOOD LIGHTING.

 

out of all the hundreds of times I've logged on - it's recognized my face exactly 4 times.

 

made me laugh for ~1 minute

 

Please contact me directly at any of the email addresses on the Sensible Vision website. With a recognition rate that low there's likely something wrong that I can probably assist with. As well, check out this FAQ first to see if anything resonates but I'd be more than happy to help.
How can I improve recognition performance?

 

I guess I have been lucky, unless I have changed lighting conditions it always works for me, and then it apparently learns new lighting conditions so the next time it will work as well. Cross my fingers that it continues!!!

 

Well I must say that this thread has been very en lightening (yes I went there). Thanks for all the great support and hints and tips! It's great to get this sort of support!

 

Use it everytime. Never fails. Like the other person said, if the lighting conditions change, then there is a problem, but it works pretty quickly now. Quicker than when I first got the laptop.

 

it works with me also.

sure if i cut my hair or shave than i have to enter my password so it recognizes me.

the recognition gets better the more you use it, if it doesnt recognize you and you used the password while you are infront of the camera, .. than the sense will add the "Shape" to its database, so it will recognize you again, ... and it keeps on adding shapes, soon enough, it will start recognizing you wither you have long / short hair or shaved/unshaved beard.

i always wondered though, ... what if you took a picture of yourself (in another camera) and put it infront of the alienware camera? .. would it recognizes it?

not bothered trying ... but if someone tried, do let me know, lol

 

Thanks for the good observations. Your description of the learning algorithm is right on and I'm really glad that it's working well for you.

Instead of speaking directly about photo recognition, I'll direct you to the following three FAQs that go through the question in great amounts of detail. In short, we take photo access quite seriously and have given FastAccess excellent photo rejection capability plus the ability to implement a very convenient form of two factor authentication should you need even more protection.
Can someone break into my account using a photograph of me?
Under what conditions COULD someone use a photograph of me to gain access to my account?
What about a “brute force” photo attack?