Not From Earth App

Turn Anyone Into an Alien and Place Them on Other Planets. Built with Artificial Intelligence. ts

New Update Coming in October, 2024. 

The Entanglement of Artificial Intelligence

AI is improving mobile Apps in dramatic ways. There are Camera Apps like FaceApp and the new Not From Earth App (close to launch), that rely heavily on Artificial Intelligence. But is it possible for AI to help solve the problem of human aging? You might be surprised to learn of the extensive research in this field. 

Here is a fascinating article published on Medium by Predict

FaceApp - Is This Love From Russia Safe?

*IMPORTANT* This Russian App should be banned from the App Store while Russia invades Ukraine. 

With over 100 million downloads, FaceApp is a viral App sensation from Russia that works on both IOS and Android. There is an assortment of filters and effects found in most photo editing apps, but this App has gone ballistic because of its remarkable face transformation features. 

FaceApp

Here's a list of alterations available: Impressions, Smiles, Beards, Gender (weird), Face Swap, Age, Hair Styles, Hair Colors, Face Sizes, Glasses, Makeup, Retouch, and then filters. 

It also provides a way to isolate the person and change the background. This comes from their DeepAI  segmentation model. 

 

Impressive right?

So what is the big concern about security with this App? Well, there is a general distrust of Facial Recognition and sharing of altered face images. This kind of face editing requires advanced AI  recognition and alteration. Skeptics also say that facial recognition is one of the tools that our government might use to bypass human rights and individual privacy and that it has the potential for identity theft.  

To be honest, I love this App. And there are hundreds of Apps now, include those from Apple, that alter faces for entertainment. I don't believe this is an issue with most Apps. And so what if this App comes from Russia? Well, there is one problem that I'm concerned about. How does this App work its magic? What is the technology behind this remarkable App?

The magic is in the use of AI models like segmentation, face recognition, and the application of effects and styles. I have no problem with any of that cool technology, but I didn't see how these models were installed. So I decided to disconnect my phone from the internet. Whoops! Here is the message I got. 

So to process your face images, those images need to be sent off to Russia With Love where they are processed, not on your phone, but on a distant server. For me, that is a bit of a problem. There is some security risk when your personal image data is uploaded to an unknown server. 

But I guess I'm willing to take that risk for now because the App is so much fun to use. But if you are at work or using someone else's images, you should probably find an App that does its magic on your own device. 

I should mention that this App is free but they charge for what they call their Pro features like more effects; and most of their features are Pro features. You will also need their Pro version to get rid of the FaceApp watermark. 

FaceApp in the Apple App Store

FaceApp in Google Play

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The Mystery Continues

 I wrote this pandemic article on Medium and I think it's worth sharing everywhere.

The Simple Real Protection from Covid-19 that You Can’t Have

 FYI My next article on Best Camera is about the new iPhone 12 camera technology. This should surprise and delight you.

Perseverance

Perseverance is scheduled to land on Mars February 18, 2021 at 3:43 PM EST

Perseverance Rover

Perseverance carries 19 cameras, that's more than any interplanetary mission in history.

If Martians exist, Perseverance will find them.

19 cameras total on the rover: 9 for engineering (color); 3 for entry, descent and landing (1 black-and-white dedicated to Terrain-Relative Navigation and 2 color for public engagement and engineering reconstruction of entry, descent and landing); 2 for Mastcam-Z (color with zoom); 1 for SuperCam (color); 2 for SHERLOC (color); 1 for PIXL (black-and-white with some color capabilities); and 1 for MEDA (black-and-white)

3 cameras on the back shell: all color, all looking up to capture parachute inflation

1 camera on the descent stage: color, looking down to view the rover from above

Watch Live

and Here

Perseverance even has cameras to capture the landing. This is one crazy Camera App.

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Perseverance has landed. News of Landing

HPPS SSL Security for Best Camera

 

We just updated Best Camera to use HTTPS SSL security

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Fix That Obnoxious Blinking Cursor

Years ago I wrote a utility called NoBlink Accelerator for Windows. If you are like me, you will want to stop the constant blinking cursor so you can concentrate on the subject. 👀  

Here's the fix for any Mac including one running Big Sur:

Open Terminal and enter these commands:

defaults write -g NSTextInsertionPointBlinkPeriod -float -1

defaults write -g NSTextInsertionPointBlinkPeriodOn -float 4000

defaults write -g NSTextInsertionPointBlinkPeriodOff -float 100

This should work on most Mac OS Applications.

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Here's the fix in Windows

In keyboard properties, adjust the slider of Text Cursor blink rate as per your choice.

Please post comments if you have any other cursor ideas