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Comment by thomasfl | Hacker News Reader

This small radard is sensitive enough to identify playing cards by looking at the tiny texture. Looking forward to seeing magicians using this in card tricks. Face ID with hyper sensitive radard should also be very accurate.

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Richard Turner, self-styled card mechanic, can count and manipulate cards with unbelievable precision by feel alone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwFIJyWKs1k

He also happens to be blind.

I'm not sure "self-styled" is quite right here, he is a card mechanic, that's the term for someone who cheats at card games by manipulating cards, and he demonstrates exactly those techniques.

Ah, thanks. I didn't know that was a common term.

To illustrate just how common it is, the first deck hold most card magicians learn is called the "Mechanic's Grip" [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanic%27s_grip

RFID magic cards probably already exist ...

They do ... That's how they know what each player have in his hands at poker tournament live feeds

Hmm are you sure? I thought they were just using hole cams still. Little cameras built into the rail or into the table that players just showed their hands to while playing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hole_cam

Yep, that's the old tables problem is it's up to the player to show their hands and some either don't care or don't want to reveal their startegy ... I think they even have RFID chips, it makes the game much more televisable

theyre both common.

rfid/nfc is popular at the moment simply because it's cheaper; no table to cut up or glass/cameras to put everywhere.

as a poker player i've always been queezy about the idea that my hand could be read remotely in theory -- but I don't play those kind of tables anyway.

Yep. See here to purchase: http://www.videopokertable.net

Do facial recognition systems retrain themselves to compensate for change caused by growth or age?

Random side-fact: a co-worker who climbs a lot stopped using fingerprint sensors on his phones because his prints change frequently enough due to climbing, that it's basically useless.

Many years ago I had to clock in and out of a job with a fingerprint scanner. I had the same issue because I played acoustic guitar a lot and had thick calluses on my fingers that would occasionally crack.

I had continual issues ~20 years ago when I worked nightfill in a supermarket's perishable department. The freezer exposure apparently changed my prints enough that clocking out was an issue.

> Many years ago I had to clock in and out of a job with a fingerprint scanner.

Interesting, I don't think I've ever heard of a company doing this. Was it like a second factor in addition to some type of card reader?

It was an entry-level IT support job at a US public school district circa 2005. They had just recently installed the scanners at every building. I believe that part-time and hourly employees like custodians, mechanics, groundskeepers, and cafeteria workers were the primary target, but the policy also extended to the tech support department (which was only me).

I've also had to do this. Worked at a fairly big healthcare company.

Mandolin positions your finger such that the callouses form even further onto the fingerprint than with guitar. I gave up on TouchID with my left hand (thumb still worked, though), and FaceID was a nice upgrade.

Yeah, I believe at one point I had them rescan with my left thumbprint.

I mostly stopped using mine because I have a bad case of hyperhydrosis (sp?), so my fingers are always sweaty / oily enough that none of the devices I use can reliably tell what my prints are.

Even when I got printed for the feds (for work reasons), they had to redo most of the fingers.

Use a knuckle. I have a similar problem. Works ok.

I climb regularly and can say that I am a bit concerned that the finger print scanner on my Pixel 2 works as often as it does. It makes me wonder if the initial scan of an abused finger means that it will read false positives more often.

Likewise for weightlifting hook-grip, which squashes your thumbs against the bar's knurling.

Google Photos was able to determine that pictures of my niece as an infant, and pictures of my niece as a 5 year old, are pictures of the same person.

I've noticed this competency in google photos as well. Though surely it is using the photos of her in between those ages to extrapolate(?)

I don’t think so. It managed to recognize an old baby picture of myself and the only other pictures of me are as a mid thirties adult.

Well props to the team behind it!

Anecdata: I regularly grow a beard and then cut it fully. Windows Hello on my Surface Pro works flawlessy during the growth phase, but it stops working when I cut it off. I guess it adjusts while my beard grows and then it can't recognize me anymore once I don't have it anymore all of a sudden.

Apple claims their FaceID system does, at least.

I've already seen some magic tricks similar to this with some small HD cameras.

actually it doesn't identify each card uniquely, it only counts them.

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