You can't fool this computer program.

Yes ladies, you can run but you can't hide. . . from the computer.

This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science

and on a new kind of facial recognition software!

Usually, facial recognition software focuses on identity. But researchers at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia decided to tackle determining age.

This computer algorithm scans a subject's photographed face and picks out sixty-eight landmark points -- the tip of the nose, edge of the eye, and so on. This set of points is translated into a set of numbers.

Landmark points move relative to each other as a person ages--generally DOWN, like earlobes and the corners of the mouth. So the program was taught that a given set of numbers corresponds to a given age.

The computer wasn't easy to fool.

The scientists tested the system on over two thousand photographed faces. It was more accurate at estimating age than humans. Thanks!

I see a DIFFERENT kind of Stanley Kubrick movie. Hal the Computer: "Sandra? I don't believe you ARE 28." "Thanks for noticing Hal--where's that power plug?"