Ford And Intel Testing Facial Recognition For Authentication In Cars

<P>All sorts of cool technology is coming to the cars of future and Ford is now testing another clever integration of technology which might end-up in your next car. Dubbed "<STRONG>Ford Mobil</STRONG>" the company in-collaboration with Intel, is testing a facial-recognition system which will perform "in-car" camera based security authentication and personalization based on driver's preference. The system uses front-facing cameras to capture drivers images and perform the facial-recognition, if the driver can't be authenticated it'll send a photo to the vehicle owner's phone asking for permission for this person to drive the vehicle. This could also be used to allow parents to control how loud their kids listen to the music while driving, how fast they can drive, and even simply monitor them driving. The "Ford Mobile" will also utilize gesture and voice recognition technology to make things even easier to control for users while driving.</P>

Ford And Intel Testing Facial Recognition For Authentication In Cars

All sorts of cool technology is coming to the cars of future and Ford is now testing another clever integration of technology which might e...

Read more »

Ford And Intel Testing Facial Recognition For Authentication In Cars

<P>All sorts of cool technology is coming to the cars of future and Ford is now testing another clever integration of technology which might end-up in your next car. Dubbed "<STRONG>Ford Mobil</STRONG>" the company in-collaboration with Intel, is testing a facial-recognition system which will perform "in-car" camera based security authentication and personalization based on driver's preference. The system uses front-facing cameras to capture drivers images and perform the facial-recognition, if the driver can't be authenticated it'll send a photo to the vehicle owner's phone asking for permission for this person to drive the vehicle. This could also be used to allow parents to control how loud their kids listen to the music while driving, how fast they can drive, and even simply monitor them driving. The "Ford Mobile" will also utilize gesture and voice recognition technology to make things even easier to control for users while driving.</P>

Ford And Intel Testing Facial Recognition For Authentication In Cars

All sorts of cool technology is coming to the cars of future and Ford is now testing another clever integration of technology which might e...

Read more »

The Golden Age For Software Testing In China

<br /> <p>The China's Computer Market 2008 Forecast Report has been released recently. It showed that in the first three quarters of 2007, the software industry in China has registered sales revenue of $50 billion, up 23.6% on pcp, accounting for 10.95% of the entire electronics and information industry' sales revenue. As the software market matures, people have higher and higher expectations over software features, quality and reliability. In October 2005, Ministry of Labour and Social Security formally listed computer software product tester (software test engineer) as one of the new professions. In only two years' time, software testing has become a powerful dark horse in the software industry.</p><p><b>Steadily rising status </b></p><p>"In the early 1990s, software industry was still at an infant stage in China. Most software projects were very simple, the whole code writing and development process could be handled by one person. As industry competition intensified, software companies were gradually evolving from one-man-band small shops to software engineering co-operations. Although division of labour could improve software development efficiency and functional varieties, it also lead to increasing number of bugs between modules and deteriorating qualities," said Mr Wang Yazhi from CONCEPT Information Technology Ltd, a major software development company in Beijing. Quality impairment would not only damage a software firm's competitiveness, it could also lead to massive economic loss for software users or even personal injuries, such as medical accidents.</p><p>As China's software enterprises continue to prosper, the importance of software testing has also been increasingly appreciated by software companies. Many large and medium software companies have begun recruiting professional staff to take care of software testing. Ms Ran Chunjuan, a former testing manager in Wuhan Superidea Technology Ltd, said that "in Superidea, the ratio between software testers and developers is 1:4. Although this is still well behind the international best practice of 1:1, it is still a great improvement from 1:8 a few years ago."</p><p><b>Industry experience appreciated</b></p><p>In addition to lifting the number of software testing staff, many companies are demanding higher staff quality as well, especially in areas of professional testing experience and thinking ability. "A tester without professional training can still work out 3-5 testing methods, but not necessarily detect bugs. Even if bugs are discovered, he might not be able to express the problems in proper languages, which could increase developers' workload. Those well-trained testers can work out 10-20 testing methods, such as boundary value analysis, equivalence classes and cause-effect diagrams, to maximally discover any bugs. Professional testers can also articulate testing documents in standardised languages, thus improving the recovery rates of software problems," said Mr Liu Fei, a former testing manager in Qualcomm. Many companies in China have now established independent testing departments, working along with R&D departments.</p><p>As companies' software testing knowledge deepens, work scope for testing staff is expanding from system testing phase to unit testing and integration testing phases. "This requires software testers to have in-depth knowledge about the businesses a product is involved in," said a testing manager from Founder Group, one of China's largest software companies, "for example, when we test software for banking applications, we have to first understand the specific users in the bank. Some operators only use keyboards in the office, but if we don't know about this and design it as a mouse-friendly control, banks will not buy, it no matter how well the software works." Therefore it could be forecast that the status for software testers who possess technical experience and customer demand knowledge will further enhance.</p><p><b>A sellers' market</b></p><p>"The software testing industry is at a growth stage," said Prof Zheng Renjie, a software testing expert. The current hot market for software testers is mainly due to the rapid development in software industry itself, "companies are demanding better quality software, which has in turn stimulated demand for software testers. But talent supply and talent training are lagging behind the dramatic changes in market demand, hence a telent shortage."</p><p>At present, software testing talent shortfall in China has exceeded 200,000, and it is rising to the 300,000 threshold. According to statistics, total software tester supply from nationwide IT training institutions is less than 10,000 per year, thus it can be foreseen that the testing talent shortage could last another 5-10 years. At the same time, talent shortage has given leverage to tester remunerations. According to a remuneration report from 51Job.com in China, starting salary for software testing engineers ranges from $400 - 650 per month, and it could increase to $1200 - 1650 for engineers with 2 to 3 years' experience, higher than the remuneration for many developers with similar service years. As the talent supply shortage continues into 2008, software testers' remuneration is looking for more gains.</p><p><b>Education and training</b></p><p>The shortage in software testers in China has not only lifted the remuneration levels, not also created a boom for educational and training institutions. Even two years ago, several prominent IT professional training institutions had realised the importance of software testing positions, and organized a few domestic and international software testing experts to co-develop training courses, which have successfully cultivated lots of software testing talents in the past two years. Currently in China, apart from overseas recruitment and company internal training, external professional training is also an important channel for producing software testers, amounted to 12% of total talent supply. As companies are paying more attention to labour costs control, more professional talents are expected to come from external training institutions.</p><p>While professional IT training is booming, tertiary education institutions also began to test the water. In August 2007, the first software testing education forum was held in Shanghai by various government bureaus and universities, explicitly marking "software testing" a core area in software engineering courses in China. But Dr Chen Honggang, who had been involved in development and testing of projects such as Windows95, Internet Explorer 4.0/5.0 and SQL Server 2000, commented that although universities can ease some pressures on software testing talent educations, based on overseas experience, professional training will still be the main channel for supplying software testing talents.</p> <br /> <br /><br /> <p>For more information on Chinese businesses, please visit www.chinabizintel.com [http://www.chinabizintel.com]</p><p>[http://www.chinabizintel.com]</p> <br /><br /> <br /> <p>

The Golden Age For Software Testing In China

The China's Computer Market 2008 Forecast Report has been released recently. It showed that in the first three quarters of 2007, th...

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Why Software Testing is Crucial in Software Development

<br /> <p>Employing software testing methods can have its disadvantages. For one, it can cause undesirable delays in releasing a newly developed software. Despite this, however, software testing is still employed by most software developing companies. Aside from the fact that software testing is part of the standard protocols in software development strategy that should be observed, there are a number of benefits that can outweigh the delays that can be caused by software testing. The following are reasons why software testing is crucial when developing a new software:</p><p>Software testing will help ensure that the new software that will be released will work. Through software testing, developers will be able to find out whether there are technical problems in a particular software before it is released. This will help ensure that the software end- users will be purchasing is working properly. Software testing also ensures that the software that is being released by its manufacturer has passed standard quality tests.</p><p>Software testing helps avoid the damages that can be resulted in by software programs with technical problems. Most people and business organizations now rely on computer technology to accomplish their tasks. Using computers can prove to make tasks easier and more efficient. Computer tasks are operated through installed software programs which entails that the software that should be released will function efficiently. Otherwise, costly damages such as wrongful financial calculations among business organizations can be resulted. Tools for software testing are therefore very important as they help ensure that softwares function properly and costly mistakes caused by faulty softwares can be avoided.</p><p>Software testing will help avoid the hassles and cost that may be caused by faulty softwares that have been released in the market. When softwares that have not gone through software testing are sold in the market, it is not unlikely that there would be technical issues that can arise from the software usage. This may have costly result particularly when a software is used in applications that are crucial in the operation of business organizations. Developers of the software will also be required to troubleshoot the problem which can also result in them to spend more correcting the technical problems in their softwares that were released without standard software quality testing.</p><p>Software testing is considered as a necessary and important process in software development. This explains why reputable software developers ensure quality software testing in their quality control processes. Software testing will help ensure that the new software that will be released will work. Software testing helps avoid the damages that can be resulted in by software programs with technical problems and software testing will help avoid the hassles and costs that may be caused by faulty softwares that have been released in the market.</p> <br /> <br /><br /> <p>Jeff Dodd is an insider in the field of Software Testing [http://www.totalsoftwaretesting.com]. For more info, stop by at [http://www.totalsoftwaretesting.com]</p> <br /><br /> <br /> <p>

Why Software Testing is Crucial in Software Development

Employing software testing methods can have its disadvantages. For one, it can cause undesirable delays in releasing a newly developed ...

Read more »