INTERESTING!!! THIS AMAZING SEARCH ENGINE AUTOMATICALLY SWAPS YOU INTO YOUR IMAGE RESULTS

Ever wonder what you would look like with long, wavy hair? I think you’d look great. But how can you try on a few looks without spending a fortune at the salon, or hours in photoshop? I’m glad you asked. All you need is a selfie and Dreambit, the face-swapping search engine.The system analyzes the picture of your face and determines how to intelligently crop it to leave nothing but your face. It then searches for images matching your search term — curly hair, for example — and looks for “doppelganger sets,” images where the subject’s face is in a similar position to your own.
A similar process is done on the target images to mask out the faces and intelligently put your own in their place — and voila! You with curly hair, again and again and again. It’s a bit like that scene in Being John Malkovich. Just as creepy depending on what face you’re putting in what situation. Keri Russell looks great in every style, though, as the diagram below shows

It’s not limited to hairstyles, either: put yourself in a movie, a location, a painting — as long as there’s a similarly positioned face to swap yours with, the software can do it. A few facial features, like beards, make the edges of the face difficult to find, however, so you may not be able to swap with Rasputin or Gandalf.

Dreambit is the brainchild of Ira Kemelmacher-Shlizerman, a computer vision researcher at the Unviersity of Washington (she also does interesting work in facial recognition and augmented reality). And while it is fun and silly to play with, it could have more serious applications.

Kemelmacher-Shlizerman has also created systems that do automated age progression, something that can be useful in missing persons cases.
“With missing children, people often dye their hair or change the style so age-progressing just their face isn’t enough,” she said in a UW news release. “This is a first step in trying to imagine how a missing person’s appearance might change over time.”
In an email to TechCrunch, Kemelmacher-Shlizerman noted that the software is still very much in beta mode and as such can’t exactly be used by the FBI.
Dreambit and the processes behind it will be presented at SIGGRAPH next week, but you can read the paper, “Transfiguring Portraits,” right now

                                                                                                SOURCE : TECHCRUNCH.COM

GOOGLE MAKES COMICS READING ON PHONE EASIER BY MAKING USE OF MACHINE LEARNING

Plenty of people still like to read their comics on paper, but increasingly, phones and tablets are the devices of choice for keeping up with the Justice League.
Last year, Google introduced a new reading experience for comics in its Play Books store for Android that makes it easier to follow along with the story. Today, the company is launching yet another update to the comics reading experience — this time with a focus on making the speech bubbles in comics more readable on small devices.
As Google’s Head of Product for Play Books Greg Hartrell told me, the team looked at the feedback it got from the last update. While readers liked the new reading experience, they complained that it was still too hard to read the text on a small screen. Google set out to find a way to make reading the text easier without taking away from the visual experience.

So now, with the help of Google’s machine learning smarts, the Google Play team is launching Bubble Zoom. Google taught its algorithms to recognize panels and detect speech bubbles and thanks to that, you can now easily zoom into speech bubbles without having to pinch and zoom (and then inevitably get confused about which panel you were actually looking at). It’s smart and easy and probably the best use of machine learning for comic book fans yet.

To move between bubbles, you can either tap on them or use the volume buttons on your phone.
For now, Bubble Zoom is only enabled within all Marvel and DC collected volumes (that’s about 2,800 comics in Google’s store — and they are all available for 50 percent off right now if you use the code SDCC2016), but Hartrell tells me that the team already trained the algorithm on millions of pages and plans to roll it out to other comics and manga over time. “We want to come to the world and say: we nailed all the styles and comics that are out there,” he said about the company’s slow rollout plans.
For now, this new reading experience is also only available on Android. There is no launch date for iOS yet, but Hartrell notes that Google is currently focussing on getting the Android experience right.

                                                                                                     
                                                                                                        SOURCE: TECHCRUNCH.COM

MOOVIT WANTS TO HELP YOU CATCH 'EM IN POKEMON GO

Moovit wants to help you catch ’em all and catch the bus at the same time. It’s integrated with Pokemon Go to make it faster to catch a Grimer. (For the uninitiated, that’s a Pokemon creature, not a subway train.)
If you’ve got the Moovit app or want to download it for iOS or Android, you can type in “PokeStops” in the app’s Trip Planner. This will bring up directions to local Pokemon Go PokeStops if you need more eggs or potions and to PokeGyms if you’ve got some evolved Pokemon itching for a fight.
Maybe most importantly, you can run Pokemon Go and Moovit (which sounds like a bovine Pokemon, come to think of it) at the same time. This is a rarity for Pokemon Go. While the game is up and running, you can at the same time use the Live Directions feature, which will alert you that you’re approaching your stop. Your actual stop, like where you get off the bus to go to work, not a PokeStop.

It’s been a busy year for Moovit, the transit app that helps users coordinate trips across modes of transportation. First, the company expanded its accessibility features for blind users. Then it integrated with Uber, closing that tricky “last mile” between public transportation stops and where you actually live.
Given all the concern for safety and situational awareness while playing Pokemon Go, maybe players would be better off taking transit and hailing a ride home instead of running into traffic on the trail of an elusive Pikachu.

                                                                                                         SOURCE: TECHCRUCH.COM

HOW TO REMOVE THE PAINT.exe VIRUS

WHAT IS THE PAINT VIRUS?

According to solvusoft , ''PAINT.exe is a type of  EXE file associated with Windows developed by Microsoft for the Windows Operating System. The latest known version of PAINT.exe is 1.0.0.0, which was produced for Windows. This EXE file carries a popularity rating of 1 stars and a security rating of "UNKNOWN".

The question to be asked is if this is really a MICROSOFT file. I've done a research on what this paint file really is and although I couldn't get a real meaning for PAINT.exe, I did get solutions to fixing the virus; 

1. REPAIRING REGISTRY ENTRIES

There are applications used to repair or fix registry entries. PAINT.exe affects other (.exe )files in folders in your internal drive by replacing the real (.exe)file with an 825kb file and hides the real (.exe)file, this is as a result of infected registries which changes the file location or replaces the real (.exe)file as said previously.
Winthruster from solvusoft helps to fix the registry entries.

2. FIXING SYSTEM ERRORS

If the above doesn't work the next step is to try and fix the system errors. 

System errors can be fixed from properties by following the steps below:

(a) Go to my computer on your PC

(b) Right-click on your hard disk and click on properties

(c) Click on tools and click on check under error checking.

(d) Wait for it and your system errors will be fixed.

3. CLEARING THE PAINT.exe and AUTORUN.inf  

If you've noticed Autorun.inf could be found where the Paint.exe is, so the last answer would be to clear the Autorun.inf  from each partition in your PC by searching for Paint.exe and Autorun.inf

HOW TO SCAN AND FIX CORRUPT SYSTEM FlLES ON WINDOWS

If your PC has been feeling buggy or having trouble during startup, it’s possible that Windows system files have become corrupt, gone missing, or even have been changed by a software installation somewhere along the line. Like most versions of Windows before it, Windows 10 includes a Command Prompt utility named Windows Resource Protection
that will scan, verify, and fix system files.

To run this utility in Windows, you will need to open the Command Prompt in administrator mode. Right-click on the Start menu or press Windows+X on your keyboard, and choose “Command Prompt (Admin)” from the Administrative Tools menu. You can also just use this nifty keyboard shortcut.If your system is able to start, even in Safe Mode, you can run the utility right from Windows. If Windows won’t start, you can also run it from the Command Prompt available when you boot from your installation media into repair mode.

When you have the Command Prompt open in administrator mode, you can run the utility by using the following syntax:

SFC [/SCANNOW] [/VERIFYONLY] [/SCANFILE=<file>] [/VERIFYFILE=<file>]
[/OFFWINDIR=<offline windows directory> /OFFBOOTDIR=<offline boot directory>]

The most useful option is just to scan the whole system immediately, which will scan and attempt to repair any files that are changed or corrupted. You can do that with this command:

sfc /scannow

Alternatively, you can use the command sfc /verifyonly to scan for problems, but not perform any repairs.

You can also just scan or verify a particular file using the /scanfile=<file> or /verifyfile=<file> options along with the full path of the target file, like this:

sfc /scanfile=c:\windows\system32\kernel32.dll

As we mentioned, this utility does exist for previous versions of Windows, but you may encounter slightly different options. You can always use the command sfc /? to get all supported options for your version of Windows. And just in case you’re wondering why Windows Resource Protection uses the command SFC, it’s because the utility used to be named System File Checker.

                                                            SOURCE: Howtogeek.com

CONNECTED CARS ALSO NEED ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARES

Connected cars can talk to each other (vehicle-to-vehicle, or V2V), and they’re starting to be able to talk to the city they’re driving around (vehicle-to-infrastructure, or V2I). That also means baddies can potentially talk to our cars, as we’ve seen in the experimental hack of a Jeep. But hacking isn’t the only danger, because wherever there’s a computer, there’s certain to be a computer virus lurking.

This is the problem Argus Cyber Security is working to address. Granted, there aren’t many viruses being spread from car to car right now, since connectivity in automobiles is still new. But Argus VP Yoni Heilbronn notes in an email interview that by 2020, around 70 million of the 90 million cars projected to ship that year will be connected. While a virus on your computer means someone could steal and misuse your data, which is bad enough, when it happens in your car, there’s potential for physical harm.

That’s still no reason to give up on cars completely and commute on a big-wheeled velocipede bicycle; car companies and tech companies have been working together for a few years now to solve the problem. “There is no silver bullet to cyber security,” says Heilbronn. “You’ll want multiple ‘bullets.'” That includes security that’s baked into the hardware along with layers of software security. “If the software that is baked in is able to be updated remotely, then it is a powerful tool for a car maker or fleet manager,” Heilbronn says.

Consumers won’t necessarily know that Argus or other security software is on board their new connected car unless they ask, since it’s ultimately the auto manufacturer who is responsible for the safety and security of the vehicle. “Although the consumer may not know we’re there,” Heilbronn says, “like the Greek myth, Argus will be the watchful eyes making sure the system is doing what it is supposed to do and absolutely nothing more.” As security needs and standards change, you might soon be able to buy Argus software for your car just as you would McAfee or Kaspersky for your computer.

Aftermarket security could become important soon, since we’re already bringing all kinds of vulnerabilities into the car ourselves. Take the “dongles” that fit into the OBD II port under the dashboard. These often come from insurance companies for usage-based rates, or there are units like the Zubie I tested that tracked my driving habits and vehicle stats. These devices communicate with the outside world, which means the outside world could communicate with them.

“Since the dongle is physically connected to the automobile and to its internal network,” according to Heilbronn, “any malware that successfully breaches the dongle’s security measures or its communication link could potentially inject malicious code onto the vehicle’s CAN Bus [the protocol automobiles use to let on board microcontrollers communicate] and cause unwanted effects to vehicle operations.” Note that as of now, he still says “potentially,” so that’s encouraging.

But about two years ago, Argus did indeed find a vulnerability in a Zubie device, showing that it could be remotely attacked to take full control of the vehicle. Argus made a responsible disclosure to Zubie, which fixed the issues and announced the improvements.

Connectivity is more than just hooking your phone up to your car wirelessly (that’s another potential vulnerability, by the way). V2V and V2I communications are going to be key technologies for autonomous automobiles. Making sure those communications are trustworthy is yet another consideration to add to the conversation as we drive forward.

                                                      SOURCE:  Techcrunch.com