November 23, 2006

New technology catches Hitler off guard "I understand you didn't like the movie last night," he says. "I know what you want. You want Gone with the Wind."

Unfortunately, a search for ALR, the technology described in the article, with Frank Hubner, its supposed developer, turns up nichts.

posted by sly_polyglot 18 years ago
  • There appear to be quite a few technical & research pdf documents on google if you search for automatic lip reading.
  • Fascinating! I'll have to pass this along to my friend the audiologist.
  • There appear to be quite a few technical & research pdf documents on google if you search for automatic lip reading. Yep, I found those, but I wanted a white paper-type of page with the dude's name on it to link to (got plenty on the actor/producer, though...)
  • Demonstrating that Hitler had human traits is clearly an effort to undermine the American effort and bring comfort to the terrorists, who are completely lacking in human traits.
  • Godwin! Heh! Was waiting to use that one...
  • For every bad in a person there's probablly a good. And for every good, just as bad.
  • Hitler had woman trouble! "FFS what now? Your dress looks fine, I'm trying to annex here!"
  • That is really fascinating. I hadn't heard of the "Hitler had Parkinson's" theory before. (And the technology is cool too, yes.)
  • I find it somewhat suspicious that this fabulous new technology brought to us by the good Dr. Hubner has escaped mention in all other media and any reasonable Google search. Indeed, one of the Frank Hubner hits on Google is in regard to a contemporary neo-Nazi by that name. Hmmmmm....
  • Oh damn. I've flirted just like Hitler... *gulp*
  • > I find it somewhat suspicious that this ... has escaped mention in all other media Well, it is the telegraph, after all. I'm dubious - I know some lip readers, and they're good but not fully accurate, especially when dealing with angles. If the guy is cross-referencing his interpretations (interpolations, really) with voice-tracked films of Hitler, then maybe this could work, but realistically I don't think he could be definitive about what Hitler was saying. Maybe 70% - 90% likelihood at best. I doubt the accuracy is much better than voice to text technology.
  • ...and any reasonable Google search... Search it again, Ralph there's quite a bit of information out there. The problem, like Chyren pointed out, is searching with the acronym. Not being able to locate "Hubner" and "speech recognition" without false positives is somewhat suspect. I wonder if Frank is his academic name, middle name or just what he told the journalist to call him?
  • ALR is apparently real, but Hubner may be bullshitting about Hilter.
  • Wearing my computer vision researcher hat, I find it very hard to believe that the technology works in the way it has been presented in the article. Just like in any perception task, humans are currently much better in lip reading than computers. Automatic lip reading has mainly been suggested as an additional modality to help speech recognition from audio signals, but even in that task it does not do much. We are simply nearly not there yet. Even tracking the lips without markers is hard enough. In other words, Hitler, Shitler.
  • Dance, you beautiful little man, dance!
  • IC, I stand by the (non)story. A search for "Hubner" on Google News shows only two sories on this topic both from the same original source, and Google knows nothing of Frank Hubner, a speech recognition expert. Odd that he and his new science could remain so hidden. Perhaps a Mofi Brit with access to a programme listing for "Five" (the story says the films will be shown "next Tuesday on Five") can see if there is such a show planned.
  • Spede: That's too bad. I'm not a computer vision researcher, but I work with plenty of them (I do software CM/build/release for the vision technologies group at Sarnoff). I saw this and thought it would be useful for our applications.
  • Heavens, Ralph, you doubt the Daily Telegraph? The programme is real enough, but there are no further details on the Five site.
  • IC, I stand by the (non)story. ...Odd that he and his new science could remain so hidden. Yeah, I'd have to agree. Especially since you'd think this would be tested with the grandiose labial acrobatics of silent movies rather than Hitler's stiff-lipped amateur porn collection. But my agreement has the contention that ALR is still highly developmental and lacking practicality and so isn't noteworthy yet, leading to a distinct lack of media release and subsequent non-storyism; and that this Hubner guy is an all-purpose jackass. Or the journalist is an idiot. Or a cornicopious combination of random assoholism.
  • Among the oddities: you can Google the journalist and get hits; if you Google his source, it is if he does not exist. Has Jason Blair moved to London?
  • I've been searching using alternate spelling of the last name, under the assumption that the journalist got it wrong. Using "Huebner," you get one guy who works at AT&T and one guy that I can't open the link because I don't have the right program.
  • I guess you're going have to watch it for us, Plegmund.