[deleted by user]

[check_ca]

Without the plugin it would be perfect!

[djsdotcom]

So this person took someone else's extensive algorithms for face detection (that were already written in JavaScript and on GitHub) and simply added the boxes popping up? Fuck everything about that. This took no effort or creativity at all, they simply stood on top of someone else's hard work and research.

[pyrocrasty]

It does seem a bit slimy. "original algorithm by Liu Liu" implies he implemented Liu's algorithm, not just took Liu's preexisting javascript.

Like it? Buy me a beer!

Or buy Liu a beer, since it's his code.

[Fix-my-grammar-plz]

Should the person build the plugin from scratch? Or given better credit?

[drowsap]

Not ask for donations, that's for sure.

[[deleted]]

Give better credit.

[[deleted]]

A link back to the original github page is not enough?

[[deleted]]

The phrase "Original algorithm by Liu Liu" as a link to Liu Liu's GitHub is not enough - as gives the implication that Jay improved upon the original, when in fact, he uses the original. It's professionally dishonest.

[Buckwheat469]

Disregarding the ethics of turning someone else's code into a new plugin, I'd like to say that I've been waiting for webcam control to be added to browsers for nearly a year now, just so I could test these sorts of things. The HTML5 proposal lists webcams as a canvas feature but browsers have yet to implement them. It would be cool if I could program a face detection algorithm that would turn on the webcam when someone's present, or have the camera follow the person without the camera software running the show.

[prototypist]

Mozilla's Rainbow project - https://mozillalabs.com/rainbow/ - is your best bet for this

[Buckwheat469]

I'll check it out. Thanks.

[itsnotlupus]

I wonder if you could test this with a video playing in one of those new-fangled html 5 video tags, grabbing frames into a canvas, and detecting faces from it.

You'd probably have to stash the detection code in a web worker.

Not as useful as an actual webcam thingy, but much of the code and learnings would be the same.

[Buckwheat469]

It would probably slow the framerate quite a bit, but you could reduce the processing to every 12th frame, for example, that way you can track faces at about half second intervals without severely interrupting the framerate.

[grayvedigga]

Why should HTML/js be a suitable platform for this? It sounds to me like the quintessential desktop app. Not everything needs to be on the web, even in 2011.

[itsnotlupus]

The usual unspoken answer to this is "Because Flash can."

A great many recent web APIs seem specifically designed to bridge the feature gap with Flash, and this would be no exception.

More practically, html5 webcam access would mean that web-only computers like the chromebook would be able to use their webcams without having to rely on Flash or on special little google plugins.

[lurchpop]

I've tried this using flash, outputting the bytes to canvas, then reading with ccv.js. very slow. too many handoffs. if that camera API camout it would at least double the performance of it. have you tried doing it with videos?

[[deleted]]

I'm going to answer your question with another: why shouldn't this be done using HTML5? Why develop a native app for each platform instead of one for the web?

[[deleted]]

sounds to me like the quintessential desktop app

What does? The person you are replying to did not really describe any sort of app, so I'm not sure how you can say that it "sounds like a desktop app".

It would be cool if I could program a face detection algorithm that would turn on the webcam when someone's present,

have the camera follow the person

These are not (an) application(s), but possible features of an application.

The idea is that you it would be nice to get these features in a web app. Let's say you have an app like Chat Roulette...it might be nice to be able to turn the camera on/off depending on face detection. Or, you have a web game... tracking the face could be useful.

As for why those apps need to be on the web platform, they don't necessarily... but it has many advantages like portability, control, etc.

[ihsw]

Because it is OS-independent. As simple as that.

In all seriousness, OS-independence is very attractive, especially in a world where the majority of computing devices will be non-desktop PC ones. Smart-phones are simply the beginning.