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The Incorporating-New-Images Edition Thursday, September 28, 2017

Apple Explains How Face ID Learns From Its Mistakes, by Russell Brandom, The Verge

Once you’ve registered your face with the system, Face ID will update its model by occasionally pulling images from successful login photos. The white paper insists those updated face images won’t leave your phone, although they may be stored there for longer than usual. That rolling enrollment explains why Face ID won’t be thrown off if a user grows a beard or buys new glasses. With new images periodically incorporated into the model, the phone’s idea of what you look like can grow incrementally, just like the face itself.

iPhone X's Facial Recognition Is Not For Children Under 13, Says Apple, by James Titcomb, The Telegraph

“The [one in a million] statistical probability is different for twins and siblings that look like you and among children under the age of 13, because their distinct facial features may not have fully developed,” Apple said. It recommended using a PIN code on the phone to lock it instead.

Handwriting Recognition

Real-Time Recognition Of Handwritten Chinese Characters Spanning A Large Inventory Of 30,000 Characters, by Apple

Handwriting recognition is more important than ever given the prevalence of mobile phones, tablets, and wearable gear like smartwatches. The large symbol inventory required to support Chinese handwriting recognition on such mobile devices poses unique challenges. This article describes how we met those challenges to achieve real-time performance on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch (in Scribble mode). Our recognition system, based on deep learning, accurately handles a set of up to 30,000 characters. To achieve acceptable accuracy, we paid particular attention to data collection conditions, representativeness of writing styles, and training regimen. We found that, with proper care, even larger inventories are within reach. Our experiments show that accuracy only degrades slowly as the inventory increases, as long as we use training data of sufficient quality and in sufficient quantity.

Handwriting recognition is more important than ever given the prevalence of mobile phones, tablets, and wearable gear like smartwatches. The large symbol inventory required to support Chinese handwriting recognition on such mobile devices poses unique challenges. This article describes how we met those challenges to achieve real-time performance on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch (in Scribble mode). Our recognition system, based on deep learning, accurately handles a set of up to thirty thousand characters. To achieve acceptable accuracy, we paid particular attention to data collection conditions, representativeness of writing styles, and training regimen. We found that, with proper care, even larger inventories are within reach. Our experiments show that accuracy only degrades slowly as the inventory increases, as long as we use training data of sufficient quality and in sufficient quantity.

Injecting Soul

Apple Music's Long Game: Why Jimmy Iovine Thinks They're 'Not Even Close' To Success With Streaming, by Hannah Karp, Billboard

“I don’t believe that what exists right now is enough.” Jimmy Iovine, who runs Apple Music -- originally Beats, the music service and electronics business that he and co-founder Dr. Dre sold to Apple for $3 billion in 2014 -- is on a tear about the deficiencies of streaming services, ­including his own. Sitting on a couch in his sunny office at Apple’s Los Angeles ­headquarters, he admits he wouldn’t be here if he weren’t “extremely” optimistic: “I believe we’re in the right place, we have the right people and the right attitude to not settle for what exists right now.” But ultimately? “Just because we’re adding millions of subscribers and the old catalog numbers are going up, that’s not the trick. That’s just not going to hold.”

Apple Music tells Billboard that it now counts well over 30 million ­paying ­subscribers, helping fuel a 17 percent revenue jump for the U.S. recorded-music business in the first half of 2017 over the same period a year ago, according to the RIAA. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs issued a report in August predicting that ­subscription streaming would drive the global record business to nearly triple to $41 billion by 2030.

But the 64-year-old Iovine, whose ­expansive career was chronicled in HBO’s recent four-part documentary seriesThe Defiant Ones, is an unlikely bear in a bull market -- he says the Goldman Sachs report “just doesn't work for me.” The ­forecast, he claims, fails to properly account for the easy money that older ­catalog music currently pulls in, not to ­mention the ­competition from free ­platforms like YouTube, a problem that video ­subscription service Netflix doesn't face. (Apple also has big plans for video apart from Apple Music: It will be ­investing $1 billion annually in it.) The veteran record executive -- who got his start sweeping out recording studios, later produced hit records for acts from Bruce Springsteen to U2, and then co-founded Interscope Records, which he ran until 2014 -- is working to crack what he sees as the music industry’s biggest challenge: how to inject enough “soul” into subscription streaming services so that fans will pay $10 a month instead of listening to their tunes on free services, which are also growing fast.

Stuff

Super Mario Run Update Released A Day Early, by John Voorhees, MacStories

A major update to Super Mario Run, which, according to a feature on the App Store, was scheduled for release tomorrow, debuted a day early. The update features a brand new mode called Remix 10, a new World Tour course, and more.

Bottom of the Page

I am waiting for Mario Kart on iPhone. Aren't we all?

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