Words Angela Robinson
"Click!"
Ahhh? the perfect shot!
Or is it? It used to be that we had to wait until we got our films processed to find
out if our precious moments were captured just how we wanted them to be. One of the most frustrating things is a red eye ruining your almost-perfect shot. But with digital cameras, checking our photos can be done in an instant; red-eye reduction is even promised thanks to various red-eye reducing software.
But did you know that apart from reducing red-eye, the software in our handy digital camera could one day be used to verify a person's age? This technology could one day even be used for face-recognition security systems, age-progression software to help identify missing children, and devices that verify a person's age and whether they're old enough to buy alcohol or cigarettes.
Andrew Gallagher, a senior research scientist at Eastman Kodak, tampered with red-eye reducing software in order to make it recognize a person's age. While studying the muscles found in our eyes, Gallagher learned that these muscles naturally weaken as we grow older. With weakened eye muscles, it's more difficult for the eye to dilate efficiently in response to changing light conditions. The dilation response decreases at a gradual rate of about one millimeter for every 10 years of a person's life. But this isn't the only change our eyes go through. As babies, we're born with adult-sized eyes; although eyes don't grow over time, the distances between them do
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For full stories, grab a copy of Speed's SEPTEMBER 2006 issue in bookstores and newsstands near you.
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