One of the most popular tools on Apple's new iPhone X is its facial recognition system.
This latest iPhone gives users the power to open the device just by looking at it. The smartphone has performed well in tests set up to trick it into opening for an unapproved user.
The person is asked a series of questions during the test. Any physical changes are studied to see which questions caused the reactions. The operator of the test then makes a decision about whether the results suggest the individual was lying or not.
In the future, experts say, lie detector tests will be carried out by systems that use video and machines. Researchers have a term for the intelligence shown by computers and other mechanical devices: artificial intelligence.
One company developing this kind of system is SilverLogic Labs in Seattle, Washington.
Rabia Piacentini is the company’s operations manager. She says the camera can gather detailed information to measure a number of emotional reactions. The data is processed by the machine, which then decides how truthful the subject is being.
In a demonstration of the system, the machine detects sadness.
“Have you ever hurt someone intentionally?”
“Yes.”
The tester says this suggests the subject is lying since many people show visual emotions when not telling the truth.
The idea of a video camera recording emotional responses and testing truthfulness – possibly even secretly - raises questions about privacy.
But SilverLogic Labs rejects those concerns. It says privacy only becomes a problem when the technology is misused. The company’s Jerimiah Hamon said he also believes a machine lie detector can be a better judge than a human tester.
In another use of the technology, the United States and Canada have studied how facial recognition systems might be used to detect lying at the border.
system
Developers of this technology say it could be used for other purposes as well. They believe it could help police detect untruthfulness and might be used by companies interviewing people for employment.
I’m Bryan Lynn.
Bryan Lynn wrote this story for VOA Learning English. His story was based on reports from the Reuters news service and other sources. George Grow was the editor.
We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.
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Words in This Story
Thanksgiving and English Verbs
Every year around the Thanksgiving holiday, a strange ceremony happens in Washington, DC. The president stands outside the White House, gives a brief speech and then officially pardons a turkey.
A pardon is a declaration that someone will not be punished.
In this ceremony, President Donald Trump Thanksgiving promises not to cook and eat a certain turkey, even though turkeys are the traditional Thanksgiving meal.
You might be asking yourself, "What is the connection between turkeys, Thanksgiving and grammar?"
In today's report, we explore what turkeys can teach you about English verbs.
What is a stative verb?
Verbs that commonly have a stative meaning include:
verbs that show emotional states, such as love and dislike;
verbs that describe sense perceptions, such as smell or taste;
In the present tense, a verb with a stative meaning is generally used in its simple form. "I love turkey," or "Americans like turkey" are two examples.
Verbs that have stative meanings are generally not used in the progressive tense. So, you will probably not hear a native speaker say, "I am loving turkey," or "Americans are liking turkey."
Thanksgiving and stative verbs
Do not fear: we can use our Thanksgiving example to make the point clearer.
Imagine you are at an American store. You hear a conversation between a customer and a store employee. The customer wants to buy a turkey that weighs 10 pounds, or 4.5 kilograms.
Unlike the turkey from the pardoning ceremony, this turkey will have a sad fate: the dinner table.
The conversation you hear might go like this:
Customer: How much does that turkey weigh?
Customer: How much does it cost?
The butcher said, "The turkey weighs 10 pounds,” and "The turkey costs 20 dollars." In both cases, the verbs have a stative meaning: The butcher is describing a condition or situation that simply exists – the weight and cost of the turkey.
Now imagine you are eating Thanksgiving dinner with an American family. You might hear any one of the following sentences:
"I love turkey!"
"The turkey smells wonderful!"
"The food tastes great!"
"The turkey looks awful."
All these sentences include stative verbs. You might notice that the verbs are also in the simple present form.
Why not use a progressive verb?
So, why would an English speaker not say, "The turkey is seeming undercooked," or, "I am disliking turkey?"
Susan Conrad and Douglas Biber are two English grammar experts. They say that, in general, English speakers use the progressive tense only when the subject of the verb actively controls the state or action.
In addition, English speakers generally use the progressive only when the verb describes an action or state that happens over an extended period of time.
So, you would not hear an English speaker say, "The turkey is seeming undercooked" because the subject of the verb, the turkey, does not control its state – being undercooked.
For the same reason, you would not hear an English speaker say, "I am disliking turkey," because the verb's subject, I, probably does not have control over the action of disliking turkey.
Now, some verbs can have stative and progressive meanings.
Consider these examples:
"The food tastes good."
"President Trump is tasting the food."
In the second sentence, "President Trump is tasting the food," the subject of the verb, President Trump, has control over his action.
In addition, the action takes place over an extended period of time: Trump must think about tasting food, then raise the food to his mouth, then consider its quality. So, you could say that the verb "taste" in this example has a progressive meaning.
What can you do?
The next time you are reading or listening to the news, pay special attention to the verbs.
Notice when the progressive form is used, and when the simple form is used. Then ask yourself why. Does the verb's subject control the action? Does the action occur over an extended period of time? Or does the verb simply describe a condition that exists?
If you are still confused about whether you should use a simple or progressive verb in your own conversations, Conrad and Biber have one tip that might help you.
They say that in conversations, English speakers use simple verbs around 120 times in every 1,000 words.
Progressive verbs are much less common: they appear fewer than 20 times in every 1,000 words.*
I'm Alice Bryant.
And I'm John Russell.
John Russell wrote this story for Learning English. Kelly Jean Kelly was the editor.
We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section.
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Words in This Story
Read, listen and learn English with this story. Double-click on any word to find the definition in the Merriam-Webster Learner's Dictionary.
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STEVE EMBER: From VOA Learning English, this is THE MAKING OF A NATION – American history in Special English. I'm Steve Ember.
This week in our series, we continue our story of the American Revolution.
On July fourth, seventeen seventy-six, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, approved the Declaration of Independence. The new country, the United States of America, was at war with its former colonial ruler, Britain. Yet not everyone in the former colonies agreed with the decision to declare independence.
No one knows for sure how many Americans remained loyal to Great Britain. John Adams, the Massachusetts political leader, thought that about a third of the colonists supported independence, a third supported Britain and a third supported neither side.
Today many historians think that only about twenty percent of the colonists supported Britain. Some colonists supported whichever side seemed to be winning.
As many as thirty thousand Americans fought for the British during the war. Others helped Britain by reporting the movements of American troops.
Who supported Britain? These groups included people who were appointed to their jobs by the king. They also included leaders of the Anglican Church and people with business connections to the British.
Professor Gordon Wood at Brown University in Rhode Island says many colonists from minority groups remained loyal to the king.
"One of the problems of the American revolution that emerged very quickly was the tyranny of the majority, which the founders, revolutionary leaders, had not anticipated. But I think we're seeing the problems that emerge when you overthrow an authoritarian leader, and you're going to have a relatively democratic society. Then the protecting the minority becomes a problem.”
Other people remained loyal because they did not want change or because they believed that independence would not improve their lives. Some thought the actions of the British government were not bad enough to bring about a rebellion. Others did not believe that the rebels could win a war against a nation as powerful as Britain.
American Indians disagreed among themselves about the revolution. Congress knew it had to make peace with the Indians as soon as the war started. If not, American troops might have to fight them and the British at the same time. To prevent trouble, American officials tried to stop settlers from moving onto Indian lands.
In some places, the Indians joined the Americans, but generally they supported the British. They expected the British to win. They saw the war as a chance to force the Americans to leave their lands. At times, the Indians fought on the side of the British, but left when the British seemed to be losing the battle.
The Americans did not forget that the Indians chose to fight for the British. When the war was over, the Americans felt they owed the Indians nothing.
African slaves in the colonies were also divided about which side to join during the American Revolution.
Thousands of slaves fought for the British. The British offered them freedom if they served in the army or navy.
Some American states also offered to free slaves who served, and hundreds of free blacks fought on the American side. Many slaves, however, felt their chances for freedom were better with the British.
At least five thousand blacks served with the colonial American forces. Most had no choice. They were slaves, and their owners took them to war or sent them instead of the owners' sons.
Other slaves felt that a nation built on freedom might share some of that freedom with them.
In the South, many slave owners kept their slaves at home rather than send them to fight. Later in the war, when every man was needed, many slaves drove wagons and carried supplies. Those who served in the colonial army and navy were not separated from whites. They fought side by side with whites during the American Revolution.
But historians say most slaves spent the war as they always had: working on their owners' farms.
The American rebels called themselves patriots. Those who supported the British were known as Tories. Patriots often seized the property of Tories to help pay for the war. They also kidnapped the slaves of Tories to use as laborers for the army. Many Tories were forced from towns in which they had lived all their lives. Some were tortured or hanged.
In New Jersey, Tories and patriots fought one another with guns, and sometimes burned each other's houses and farms.
Some historians say the American Revolution was really the nation's first civil war. The revolution divided many families.
Jayne Gordon at the Massachusetts Historical Society tells of a woman named Phoebe. Phoebe was married to a patriot. But her brother was a Tory.
"And we think of what it must've been like for Phoebe, in the middle between her husband and her brother. So that's a perfect example of a family that was split."
The patriots were also split among themselves in their thinking. The colonies did not really think of themselves as one nation. They saw themselves as independent states trying to work together toward a common goal. Historian Gordon Wood says at first, the United States was more like the European Union is today.
"When Jefferson said 'my country,' he meant Virginia. When John Adams said 'my country,' he meant Massachusetts."
This meant that Congress could not order the states to do anything they did not want to do. Congress could not demand that the states provide money for the war. It could only ask for their help.
George Washington, the top general, could not draft men into the army. He could only wait for the states to send them. Washington showed that he was a good politician by the way he kept Congress and the thirteen states supporting him throughout the war.
Just as Americans did not all agree about the war, the British people did not agree about it either. Many supported the government's decision to fight. They believed that the war was necessary to rescue loyalists from the patriots. Others did not think Britain should fight the Americans, because the Americans had not invaded or threatened their country. They believed that Britain should leave the colonies alone to do as they wished.
King George was not able to do this, however. He supported the war as a way to continue his power in the world, and to rescue British honor in the eyes of other national leaders.
Whichever side British citizens were on, there was no question that the war was causing severe problems in Britain. British businessmen could no longer trade with the American colonies. Prices increased. Taxes did, too. And young men were forced to serve in the Royal Navy.
At the start of the war, the British believed that the rebellion was led by a few extremists in New England. They thought the other colonies would surrender if that area could be surrounded and controlled. So they planned to separate New England from the other colonies by taking control of the Hudson River Valley.
The British changed their plans after they were defeated in the Battle of Saratoga in New York state. Historian Gordon Wood says the British loss changed the nature of the war.
"The French feel at this point that the Americans might make it, and therefore they throw in their support. Once the French come on board, then the British are really panicked. At that point they offer the Americans everything the Americans had wanted, save independence, but it was too late."
The British experienced many problems fighting the war. Their troops were far from home, across a wide ocean. It was difficult to bring in more troops and supplies. Gordon Wood says the distance across the Atlantic was one reason the British lost the war.
"Even though they were the most powerful nation in the world, had a superb army, and of course completely controlled the seas. And they were dealing with the ragtag army of George Washington and a bunch of militia, and they couldn't do it."
General Washington's army had its own problems, too. Congress never had enough money. States often did not do what they were supposed to do. And citizens were not always willing to fight. Soldiers were poorly trained and would promise to serve for only a year or so.
The political and economic developments of the American Revolution concerned not just the Americans and the British. European nations were watching the events in America very closely. Those events, and the reactions in Europe, will be our story next week.
You can find our series online with transcripts, MP3s, podcasts and pictures at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. I'm Steve Ember, inviting you to join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English.
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This was program #13
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