id=703285&AY13 Major players in the market include Aurora Computer Services, Ayonix corp., Collins Aerospace, FaceFirst, Inc., Gemalto (Thales Group), Kairos AR, Inc, NEC Corporation, Safran ...

Airport Facial Recognition Market 2023-2030 Shows Unbelievable Growth | Top Companies - Ayonix corp., Collins Aerospace, FaceFirst

Operations enhancement, compliance and risk reduction technologies are significant goals for security professionals, and potential solutions were on display at GSX

GSX 2023 Opens with Focus on Risk, Compliance and Process

Typhoon Saola sent a Hong Kong woman faceplanting and sliding on a road in a viral video. The woman seemed to avoid serious injuries.

Woman Violently Flies Across Road As Typhoon Saola Rips Through Hong Kong

The worldwide Law Enforcement Biometrics Market is expected to grow at a booming CAGR of 2023-2030, rising from USD billion in 2023 to USD billion in 2030. It also shows the importance of the Law Enforcement Biometrics Market main players in the sector,

Law Enforcement Biometrics Market Overview 2023 to 2030, Future Trends and Forecast | BioEnable, 3M Cogent, FaceFirst

The Global Law Enforcement Biometrics Market Analysis to 2030 is a specialised and in-depth market study with a special

Law Enforcement Biometrics Market Growth, Business Overview 2023, and Forecast to 2030 | BioEnable, 3M Cogent, FaceFirst

An investigation by professional authenticator, Dr. Whitny Braun to reveal extraordinary, groundbreaking evidence uncovering whether a newly discovered, secret photograph could be the 131st and final image of President Lincoln.

The Lost Lincoln

The newly-created City of Mableton is holding its runoff election Tuesday. First-time mayors for Brookhaven, Johns Creek, and Peachtree Corners gave insight.

First-time mayors across Georgia give advice to soon-to-be Mableton's first-elected mayor

The MarketWatch News Department was not involved in the creation of this content. Mar 13, 2023 (The Expresswire) -- Global “Biometrics Spending in Government Market” [Latest Research Report ...

Global "Biometrics Spending in Government Market" Size and Growing Future Demand by [2023-2029] | Latest Research Report

NOTE: Figures on this page are calculations by OpenSecrets based on data from the Senate Office of Public Records. Data for the most recent year was downloaded on February 16, 2023 and includes spending from January 1 - December 31. Prior years include ...

Client Profile: FaceFirst Inc

FaceFirst

facefirst

Introduction In the Fallout universe, you emerge from a vault into a harsh, post-apocalyptic world where survival depends on scrappy resourcefulness and fierce independence. While our modern Internet isn’t exactly a wasteland, it does share a central challenge: control over digital resources can be as concentrated as a raider boss’s stranglehold on the wasteland’s water supply. On one hand, we have super-fast streaming and global interconnectivity at our fingertips, on the other, we face massive data-collection empires, cybersecurity risks, and regulatory uncertainties. Like settlers striking out to rebuild civilization in Fallout, it envisions a more autonomous, citizen-driven Internet—one that’s less reliant on a single authority and more resilient to bad actors or moral hazards, and this concept has been gaining momentum as communities worldwide recognize the power of distributed structures so decentralized internet can play a key role. The Internet of the Future A decentralized Internet might best be viewed as a series of online “vaults,” each powered by its community members instead of a central overseer. Where current networks funnel user data through large companies and governments, a robust decentralized system redistributes that data across numerous nodes, where each node—the digital equivalent of a wasteland homestead—carries part of the load and enforces rules through consensus rather than hierarchy. Privacy stands at the heart of this new digital frontier, and when data is no longer stored under one roof, surveillance and big data breaches become far more difficult to pull off, because, with censorship-resistant protocols, communities can coordinate, share information, and transact without having to trust a single controlling entity. Decentralized solutions also promise broader global accessibility, particularly for regions under economic or political constraints—akin to the resourceful settlers in Fallout forging creative solutions in a tough environment. Pros & Cons of a Decentralized Internet Who benefits most from this fresh start?•Individuals seeking greater control: Just as lone wanderers in Fallout have to fend for themselves, web users in a truly decentralized system gain more autonomy over how they store and share data. •Communities with limited trust: A decentralized Internet levels the playing field, eliminating the need to rely on institutions that might not have their best interests at heart. But the road to a utopian Internet has its stumbling blocks:•Infrastructure complexity: Setting up user-friendly decentralized systems requires significant innovation. It’s not enough to build a better “vault”; we need easy onboarding—something that has long been a pain point in blockchain technology. •Regulatory and legal hurdles: The more decentralized we become, the more we challenge entrenched power structures, and we need  to navigate government policies without losing the essence of decentralization takes delicate balancing. •Public awareness and adoption: Even if we can build self-sustaining digital settlements, we also need real users willing to reside there, and that means robust education and accessible tools so a broader audience can join in on this adoption. To overcome these obstacles, efforts must focus on creating intuitive user experiences and workable regulatory frameworks, we need collaborations among tech innovators, policymakers, and everyday citizens who are key to advancing decentralized infrastructures—much the way communities in Fallout share precious resources for the common good. A Nod to Champions of Decentralization Several decentralized tools already light the way:•Peer-to-Peer File Sharing: Early forerunners like BitTorrent demonstrated that large-scale distribution without centralized servers is possible. •Blockchain Platforms: Bitcoin and Ethereum introduced transparent, composable blockchains which open up opportunities for decentralized apps tackling everything from finance to digital identity. •InterPlanetary File System (IPFS): Borrowing from a planetary-scale vision, IPFS promises a web that’s peer-to-peer and more censorship-resistant—like an underground radio station in Fallout broadcasting across the wasteland. Space infrastructure: Not to mention that some of the infrastructure needs to internetwork, should stay unreachable like satellite, and use blockchain to provide internet access like Spacecoin is doing right now. These and other frameworks inspire innovators to develop new decentralized structures, forging an online environment that’s open and secure for all. Conclusion Working toward a decentralized Internet may sound as futuristic as the technical relics from Fallout’s vaults, but it’s an increasingly feasible and vital goal because, by reducing centralized control, we water the seeds of online freedom, fostering privacy, resilience, and inclusive access. For individuals, developers, or organizations yearning to be digital pioneers, the best first steps include:•Exploring existing decentralized apps and tools. • Contributing to open-source projects that advance censorship-resistance, encryption, and consensus mechanisms. •Supporting policy discussions that encourage fair, secure, and privacy-focused online frameworks. Much like rebuilding the wasteland in Fallout, ushering in a decentralized Internet demands vision, collaboration, and a willingness to embrace the unknown. The payoff, though, is a more balanced ecosystem—an online frontier where everyone has a stake in ensuring our digital world endures, even under the toughest conditions. Text article was translated from my Italian text, using ChatGPT O1 model (sorry my English is bad so i need tools to translate it better) Cover image was made with Ideogram, this is the prompt image I used:
A post-apocalyptic scene with a rugged wastelander sitting amidst rubble, fully engrossed in the glow of their laptop. The environment is filled with collapsed concrete walls, twisted rebar, and a smoldering fire in the background. The text "Post-Apocalyptic Online Frontier" is written in distressed, blocky letters below the figure. The color palette consists of burnt sienna, dusty browns, and charcoal grays for the environment, with a vivid green glow from the laptop screen. Introduction In the Fallout universe, you emerge from a vault into a harsh, post-apocalyptic world where survival depends on scrappy resourcefulness and fierce independence. While our modern Internet isn’t exactly a wasteland, it does share a central challenge: control over digital resources can be as concentrated as a raider boss’s stranglehold on the wasteland’s water supply. On one hand, we have super-fast streaming and global interconnectivity at our fingertips, on the other, we face massive data-collection empires, cybersecurity risks, and regulatory uncertainties. Like settlers striking out to rebuild civilization in Fallout, it envisions a more autonomous, citizen-driven Internet—one that’s less reliant on a single authority and more resilient to bad actors or moral hazards, and this concept has been gaining momentum as communities worldwide recognize the power of distributed structures so decentralized internet can play a key role. The Internet of the Future A decentralized Internet might best be viewed as a series of online “vaults,” each powered by its community members instead of a central overseer. Where current networks funnel user data through large companies and governments, a robust decentralized system redistributes that data across numerous nodes, where each node—the digital equivalent of a wasteland homestead—carries part of the load and enforces rules through consensus rather than hierarchy. Privacy stands at the heart of this new digital frontier, and when data is no longer stored under one roof, surveillance and big data breaches become far more difficult to pull off, because, with censorship-resistant protocols, communities can coordinate, share information, and transact without having to trust a single controlling entity. Decentralized solutions also promise broader global accessibility, particularly for regions under economic or political constraints—akin to the resourceful settlers in Fallout forging creative solutions in a tough environment. Pros & Cons of a Decentralized Internet Who benefits most from this fresh start? • Individuals seeking greater control : Just as lone wanderers in Fallout have to fend for themselves, web users in a truly decentralized system gain more autonomy over how they store and share data. Individuals seeking greater control • Communities with limited trust : A decentralized Internet levels the playing field, eliminating the need to rely on institutions that might not have their best interests at heart. Communities with limited trust But the road to a utopian Internet has its stumbling blocks: • Infrastructure complexity : Setting up user-friendly decentralized systems requires significant innovation. It’s not enough to build a better “vault”; we need easy onboarding—something that has long been a pain point in blockchain technology. Infrastructure complexity • Regulatory and legal hurdles : The more decentralized we become, the more we challenge entrenched power structures, and we need  to navigate government policies without losing the essence of decentralization takes delicate balancing. Regulatory and legal hurdles • Public awareness and adoption : Even if we can build self-sustaining digital settlements, we also need real users willing to reside there, and that means robust education and accessible tools so a broader audience can join in on this adoption. Public awareness and adoption To overcome these obstacles, efforts must focus on creating intuitive user experiences and workable regulatory frameworks, we need collaborations among tech innovators, policymakers, and everyday citizens who are key to advancing decentralized infrastructures—much the way communities in Fallout share precious resources for the common good. A Nod to Champions of Decentralization Several decentralized tools already light the way: • Peer-to-Peer File Sharing : Early forerunners like BitTorrent demonstrated that large-scale distribution without centralized servers is possible. Peer-to-Peer File Sharing • Blockchain Platforms : Bitcoin and Ethereum introduced transparent, composable blockchains which open up opportunities for decentralized apps tackling everything from finance to digital identity. Blockchain Platforms • InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) : Borrowing from a planetary-scale vision, IPFS promises a web that’s peer-to-peer and more censorship-resistant—like an underground radio station in Fallout broadcasting across the wasteland. InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) Space infrastructure: Not to mention that some of the infrastructure needs to internetwork, should stay unreachable like satellite, and use blockchain to provide internet access like Spacecoin is doing right now. Space infrastructure: Not to mention that some of the infrastructure needs to internetwork, should stay unreachable like satellite, and use blockchain to provide internet access like Spacecoin is doing right now. Space infrastructure : Not to mention that some of the infrastructure needs to internetwork, should stay unreachable like satellite, and use blockchain to provide internet access like Spacecoin is doing right now. Space infrastructure Spacecoin These and other frameworks inspire innovators to develop new decentralized structures, forging an online environment that’s open and secure for all. Conclusion Working toward a decentralized Internet may sound as futuristic as the technical relics from Fallout’s vaults, but it’s an increasingly feasible and vital goal because, by reducing centralized control, we water the seeds of online freedom, fostering privacy, resilience, and inclusive access. For individuals, developers, or organizations yearning to be digital pioneers, the best first steps include: • Exploring existing decentralized apps and tools. Exploring • Contributing to open-source projects that advance censorship-resistance, encryption, and consensus mechanisms. Contributing • Supporting policy discussions that encourage fair, secure, and privacy-focused online frameworks. Supporting policy Much like rebuilding the wasteland in Fallout, ushering in a decentralized Internet demands vision, collaboration, and a willingness to embrace the unknown. The payoff, though, is a more balanced ecosystem—an online frontier where everyone has a stake in ensuring our digital world endures, even under the toughest conditions. Text article was translated from my Italian text, using ChatGPT O1 model (sorry my English is bad so i need tools to translate it better) Text article was translated from my Italian text, using ChatGPT O1 model (sorry my English is bad so i need tools to translate it better) Cover image was made with Ideogram, this is the prompt image I used: A post-apocalyptic scene with a rugged wastelander sitting amidst rubble, fully engrossed in the glow of their laptop. The environment is filled with collapsed concrete walls, twisted rebar, and a smoldering fire in the background. The text "Post-Apocalyptic Online Frontier" is written in distressed, blocky letters below the figure. The color palette consists of burnt sienna, dusty browns, and charcoal grays for the environment, with a vivid green glow from the laptop screen. Cover image was made with Ideogram, this is the prompt image I used: A post-apocalyptic scene with a rugged wastelander sitting amidst rubble, fully engrossed in the glow of their laptop. The environment is filled with collapsed concrete walls, twisted rebar, and a smoldering fire in the background. The text "Post-Apocalyptic Online Frontier" is written in distressed, blocky letters below the figure. The color palette consists of burnt sienna, dusty browns, and charcoal grays for the environment, with a vivid green glow from the laptop screen.

Is the Internet Doomed to Fallout? Why Decentralization Is Our Survival Plan 

¿Internetax jan waltʼayasiñatak condenadoti? Kunatsa Descentralización ukaxa Jiwasana Plan de Supervivencia ukaxa 

İnternet çökməyə məhkumdurmu? Niyə mərkəzsizləşdirmə bizim sağ qalma planımızdır 

Ці асуджаны Інтэрнэт на выпадзенне? Чаму дэцэнтралізацыя - гэта наш план выжывання 

Обречен ли е интернет на пропадане? Защо децентрализацията е нашият план за оцеляване 

Er internettet dømt til at falde ud? Hvorfor decentralisering er vores overlevelsesplan 

Ist das Internet dem Untergang geweiht? Warum Dezentralisierung unser Überlebensplan ist

¿Está Internet condenada a sufrir una recaída? Por qué la descentralización es nuestro plan de supervivencia

Internet está condenado a Fallout? Por que a descentralización é o noso plan de supervivencia 

क्या इंटरनेट का पतन निश्चित है? विकेंद्रीकरण ही हमारी अस्तित्व की योजना है

インターネットは崩壊の運命にあるか？分散化が私たちの生存計画である理由

Vai internets ir lemts izkrišanai? Kāpēc decentralizācija ir mūsu izdzīvošanas plāns? 

İnternet Çökmeye Mahkûm mu? Neden Merkeziyetsizlik Hayatta Kalma Planımızdır?

The performance of deep neural nets made a big step forward in the last two decades. Every year, new architectures are devised that beat state-of-the-art results. However, only improving architectures won’t work without a quality dataset. The dataset has a big impact on final performance. Collecting and labeling diverse, accurate datasets may be laborious and expensive, and existing datasets usually don’t cover the whole variety of real data distribution, so data augmentation techniques are used. In this article, I will show how your dataset of human faces can be enriched by 3D geometry transformation to improve the performance of your model. Open source code implementation is provided below[1]. Data augmentation is a technique that increases the amount of data by applying different modifications to samples. Generic image augmentation can be divided into two categories: geometric transformations and color transformations. Geometric transformations consist of scaling, cropping, flipping, rotation, translation, etc. While color transformations consist of color jittering, noise adding, grayscaling, brightness/contrast adjustment, etc. Let’s think about how we can augment an image if we know that there’s a human face. How do we distinguish one person from another? There are face features that constitute identity, like skin color, face shape, haircut, wrinkles, eye color, etc. One of the most distinguishable is the face shape. So, if we change the shape of the input face image, it will be a slightly different person for a trainable model. So, let’s use this property to augment our dataset. We will alter the geometry of a face by using the 3D Morphable Model (3DMM), specifically the FLAME[2] model. 3DMM is a three-dimensional mesh that has parameters to manipulate its shape, pose, and expression. 3DMM is constructed from three-dimensional meshes that have been registered by real people. Thus, it can represent the distribution of real face shapes. Under the hood, it consists of the mean shape and a set of principal components that specify the directions of change for shape and expression. Alpha and beta are parameters of the model. Before changing the face shape, we need to find parameters of 3DMM that correspond to our input photo. There are several methods to do that, like optimization to landmarks, photometric optimization, or regression models to predict parameters in one step. I used 2D landmark optimization as it has a simple implementation and gives accurate results in a reasonable time. Facial landmarks were detected on the input image with the Dlib face detection model. Adam optimization algorithm was used with MSE loss for landmarks to fit 3DMM into the face image. It took about 150 iterations to converge. Now, we are ready to modify the geometry of the face. First of all, we already have a three-dimensional mesh aligned with our face image. Сhanging 3DMM’s shape parameters leads to a shift of mesh vertices in image space. Knowing that shifts, we can use it to move the pixels of the image. To get a dense map of shifts, I used the OpenGL library, where I rendered 3DMM mesh with shifts in x and y directions instead of vertex color. There is one thing left to consider, how to handle pixels that were out of the face mesh area. For this purpose, I used extrapolation, which smoothly connects the changed face with a static background. As long as we have dense shift maps for x and y directions, we can apply them to any type of label like facial landmarks, segmentation masks, or paired images. You can see examples of face augmentation with geometric transformation in the figure below. If you want to know more details, I invite you to source code[1]. Now, you can try it on your datasets. This augmentation technique will help you to improve a model making it stable to input variations. In this article, we learned about 3D geometric transformation, but besides it, there are texture modifications which are further improvements of face datasets, which in the next article. References [1] GitHub code. https://github.com/ainur699/face_data_augmentation [2] FLAME model. https://flame.is.tue.mpg.de/index.html The performance of deep neural nets made a big step forward in the last two decades. Every year, new architectures are devised that beat state-of-the-art results. However, only improving architectures won’t work without a quality dataset. The dataset has a big impact on final performance. Collecting and labeling diverse, accurate datasets may be laborious and expensive, and existing datasets usually don’t cover the whole variety of real data distribution, so data augmentation techniques are used. In this article, I will show how your dataset of human faces can be enriched by 3D geometry transformation to improve the performance of your model. Open source code implementation is provided below[1]. Data augmentation is a technique that increases the amount of data by applying different modifications to samples. Generic image augmentation can be divided into two categories: geometric transformations and color transformations. Geometric transformations consist of scaling, cropping, flipping, rotation, translation, etc. While color transformations consist of color jittering, noise adding, grayscaling, brightness/contrast adjustment, etc. Let’s think about how we can augment an image if we know that there’s a human face. How do we distinguish one person from another? There are face features that constitute identity, like skin color, face shape, haircut, wrinkles, eye color, etc. One of the most distinguishable is the face shape. So, if we change the shape of the input face image, it will be a slightly different person for a trainable model. So, let’s use this property to augment our dataset. We will alter the geometry of a face by using the 3D Morphable Model (3DMM), specifically the FLAME[2] model. 3DMM is a three-dimensional mesh that has parameters to manipulate its shape, pose, and expression. 3DMM is constructed from three-dimensional meshes that have been registered by real people. Thus, it can represent the distribution of real face shapes. Under the hood, it consists of the mean shape and a set of principal components that specify the directions of change for shape and expression. Alpha and beta are parameters of the model. Before changing the face shape, we need to find parameters of 3DMM that correspond to our input photo. There are several methods to do that, like optimization to landmarks, photometric optimization, or regression models to predict parameters in one step. I used 2D landmark optimization as it has a simple implementation and gives accurate results in a reasonable time. Facial landmarks were detected on the input image with the Dlib face detection model. Adam optimization algorithm was used with MSE loss for landmarks to fit 3DMM into the face image. It took about 150 iterations to converge. Now, we are ready to modify the geometry of the face. First of all, we already have a three-dimensional mesh aligned with our face image. Сhanging 3DMM’s shape parameters leads to a shift of mesh vertices in image space. Knowing that shifts, we can use it to move the pixels of the image. To get a dense map of shifts, I used the OpenGL library, where I rendered 3DMM mesh with shifts in x and y directions instead of vertex color. There is one thing left to consider, how to handle pixels that were out of the face mesh area. For this purpose, I used extrapolation, which smoothly connects the changed face with a static background. As long as we have dense shift maps for x and y directions, we can apply them to any type of label like facial landmarks, segmentation masks, or paired images. You can see examples of face augmentation with geometric transformation in the figure below. If you want to know more details, I invite you to source code[1]. Now, you can try it on your datasets. This augmentation technique will help you to improve a model making it stable to input variations. In this article, we learned about 3D geometric transformation, but besides it, there are texture modifications which are further improvements of face datasets, which in the next article. References References [1] GitHub code. https://github.com/ainur699/face_data_augmentation https://github.com/ainur699/face_data_augmentation https://github.com/ainur699/face_data_augmentation [2] FLAME model. https://flame.is.tue.mpg.de/index.html https://flame.is.tue.mpg.de/index.html https://flame.is.tue.mpg.de/index.html

Face Data Augmentation - Part 1: Geometric Transformation

Aumento de datos faciales: parte 1: transformación geométrica

Kasvotietojen lisäys – Osa 1: Geometrinen muunnos

Aumento de datos faciales - Parte 1: Transformación xeométrica

Դեմքի տվյալների ավելացում - Մաս 1. Երկրաչափական փոխակերպում

הגדלת נתוני פנים - חלק 1: טרנספורמציה גיאומטרית

顔データの拡張 - パート 1: 幾何学的変換

ການເພີ່ມຂໍ້ມູນໃບຫນ້າ - ສ່ວນທີ 1: ການຫັນປ່ຽນທາງເລຂາຄະນິດ

Veido duomenų papildymas – 1 dalis. Geometrinė transformacija

Зголемување на податоци за лице - Дел 1: Геометриска трансформација

Go oketša Datha ya Sefahlego - Karolo ya 1: Phetogo ya Thutafase

Повећање података о лицу – 1. део: Геометријска трансформација

Yüz Verisi Artırma - Bölüm 1: Geometrik Dönüşüm

You run In-App Events and don’t know if your efforts bring any value. Many app developers and marketing managers face the challenge of accurately measuring the impact of In-App Events (IAEs) on the App Store. While IAEs have proven effective for re-engaging users, attracting new downloads, and increasing revenue, traditional tracking methods like OneLink don’t actually include IAEs. Major mobile attribution platforms confirm that currently, there is no way to track IAEs properly. At Social Discovery Group, our portfolio of 60+ dating and entertainment brands is supported by a team of over 100 marketers dedicated to app growth and development. We’re used to measuring all our marketing efforts in terms of financial value. Eventually, we’ve managed to develop our own composite way to evaluate IAEs, and are going to share it with you. Normally, all digital marketers track their marketing activities using an attribution provider to understand how each UA channel performs. At SDG, we love to measure all our marketing efforts in terms of financial value, and IAEs are no exception. When creating IAEs, we should upload a OneLink leading to the event itself. However, it turned out that when you want to see the results of the IAE through OneLink, there is no accurate information. At best, there will be some data about the returning users who were previously attributed by the tracker. At worst, you will not even be able to find your IAE in the list of attributions. By the way, we spoke with representatives of all major mobile attribution platforms, and all of them confirmed that currently there is no way to track IAEs properly, and any data we could see on their platforms wasn't comprehensive. This means that it would be wrong to use their data for proper evaluation. At first, we tried to measure the results of IAEs by OneLinks only and were somewhat satisfied seeing some returning clients and the revenue generated by them. This approach broke down when one day we couldn’t find our IAE on the attribution platform at all. This was a sign for us to dig deeper and find a proper way of measuring IAEs. So, now our reports on IAEs contain data from three sources. The first one is App Store Connect, of course. Under Analytics -> Metrics -> In-App Events, we can see the number of impressions of the IAE (both unique and total) and its views (also both unique and total), as well as app opens (without a division between unique and total). There are also two more parameters that are always null for our apps - reminders and notification taps. But that is not all. If we choose “By In-App Event” in the second filter, the following data will be available: Downloads (total, first-time, redownloads), Sales (sales, proceeds (sales minus Apple’s commission), number of in-app purchases, and paying users), Usage - opt-in only (installations, sessions, active devices, active last 30 days, crashes, and deletions). Other metrics we can track about IAEs (opt-in only) include installations, sessions, active devices, active users in the last 30 days, crashes, and deletions. We can evaluate IAEs on the App Store side in the Metrics section, including downloads, sales, usage (opt-in), and In-App Events (data analogous to the App Store section). We don’t use all the above-mentioned parameters for our IAE reports—only these ones: impressions, page views, app opens, number of in-app purchases, and sales. The above-mentioned information might seem enough to draw conclusions about IAEs, but it doesn’t give us the full picture. It could be sufficient if an app (or a game) gets only organic traffic. But if there is also paid user acquisition, we should take paid users into consideration as they also visit the app page and see the IAE. Our second source is the information about IAEs on our attribution platform provided by OneLinks. Users here are attributed to retargeting (re-attributions and re-engagements), so we choose "View type = retargeting" in the settings, and we’ll see our IAE OneLink name in the list of media sources. The most interesting data for us here are the number of re-engagements and revenue. Depending on your settings, you can also see clicks, ARPU, sessions, etc. The third and final step of our IAE evaluation is to compare the total number of registrations, sales, revenue, advertising costs, and advertising installs across all paid traffic sources before and during the IAE. For such a report, we have developed our own reporting system. If paid marketing activity (in terms of costs and installs) was more or less at the same level before and during the IAE (or even decreased), and there is an uplift in metrics such as registrations, sales, and revenue, we conclude that the IAE drove these improvements and was a success. Summing up, despite the fact that OneLinks doesn’t track in-app events directly, you can still evaluate their effectiveness. To do this, you need to combine three types of data: from App Store Connect (at least impressions, page views, app opens, and in-app purchases with sales), retargeting data from the attribution platform where the OneLink was created to evaluate returned users (re-engagements and revenue), and a general uplift in registrations, sales, and revenue for all paid traffic sources considering marketing spends (since the in-app event is viewed not only by organic users but also by paid ones). This approach allows you to comprehensively evaluate the results of in-app events and determine whether it is worth the effort to launch them. According to our reports, it is.Wishing you profitable in-app events! Please, share in the comments how you track their results. Written by Elena Alekseeva, Team Lead ASO at Social Discovery Group You run In-App Events and don’t know if your efforts bring any value. You run In-App Events and don’t know if your efforts bring any value. Many app developers and marketing managers face the challenge of accurately measuring the impact of In-App Events (IAEs) on the App Store. While IAEs have proven effective for re-engaging users, attracting new downloads, and increasing revenue, traditional tracking methods like OneLink don’t actually include IAEs. Many app developers and marketing managers face the challenge of accurately measuring the impact of In-App Events (IAEs) on the App Store. While IAEs have proven effective for re-engaging users, attracting new downloads, and increasing revenue, traditional tracking methods like OneLink don’t actually include IAEs. Major mobile attribution platforms confirm that currently, there is no way to track IAEs properly. At Social Discovery Group, our portfolio of 60+ dating and entertainment brands is supported by a team of over 100 marketers dedicated to app growth and development. We’re used to measuring all our marketing efforts in terms of financial value. Major mobile attribution platforms confirm that currently, there is no way to track IAEs properly. At Social Discovery Group, our portfolio of 60+ dating and entertainment brands is supported by a team of over 100 marketers dedicated to app growth and development. We’re used to measuring all our marketing efforts in terms of financial value. Eventually, we’ve managed to develop our own composite way to evaluate IAEs, and are going to share it with you. Eventually, we’ve managed to develop our own composite way to evaluate IAEs, and are going to share it with you. Normally, all digital marketers track their marketing activities using an attribution provider to understand how each UA channel performs. At SDG, we love to measure all our marketing efforts in terms of financial value, and IAEs are no exception. When creating IAEs, we should upload a OneLink leading to the event itself. However, it turned out that when you want to see the results of the IAE through OneLink, there is no accurate information. At best, there will be some data about the returning users who were previously attributed by the tracker. At worst, you will not even be able to find your IAE in the list of attributions. By the way, we spoke with representatives of all major mobile attribution platforms, and all of them confirmed that currently there is no way to track IAEs properly, and any data we could see on their platforms wasn't comprehensive. This means that it would be wrong to use their data for proper evaluation. At first, we tried to measure the results of IAEs by OneLinks only and were somewhat satisfied seeing some returning clients and the revenue generated by them. This approach broke down when one day we couldn’t find our IAE on the attribution platform at all. This was a sign for us to dig deeper and find a proper way of measuring IAEs. So, now our reports on IAEs contain data from three sources. The first one is App Store Connect, of course. Under Analytics -> Metrics -> In-App Events, we can see the number of impressions of the IAE (both unique and total) and its views (also both unique and total), as well as app opens (without a division between unique and total). There are also two more parameters that are always null for our apps - reminders and notification taps. The first one is App Store Connect, of course. But that is not all. If we choose “By In-App Event” in the second filter, the following data will be available: Downloads (total, first-time, redownloads), Sales (sales, proceeds (sales minus Apple’s commission), number of in-app purchases, and paying users), Usage - opt-in only (installations, sessions, active devices, active last 30 days, crashes, and deletions). Other metrics we can track about IAEs (opt-in only) include installations, sessions, active devices, active users in the last 30 days, crashes, and deletions. We can evaluate IAEs on the App Store side in the Metrics section, including downloads, sales, usage (opt-in), and In-App Events (data analogous to the App Store section). We don’t use all the above-mentioned parameters for our IAE reports—only these ones: impressions, page views, app opens, number of in-app purchases, and sales. The above-mentioned information might seem enough to draw conclusions about IAEs, but it doesn’t give us the full picture. It could be sufficient if an app (or a game) gets only organic traffic. But if there is also paid user acquisition, we should take paid users into consideration as they also visit the app page and see the IAE. Our second source is the information about IAEs on our attribution platform provided by OneLinks. Users here are attributed to retargeting (re-attributions and re-engagements), so we choose "View type = retargeting" in the settings, and we’ll see our IAE OneLink name in the list of media sources. The most interesting data for us here are the number of re-engagements and revenue. Depending on your settings, you can also see clicks, ARPU, sessions, etc. Our second source is the information about IAEs on our attribution platform provided by OneLinks. The third and final step of our IAE evaluation is to compare the total number of registrations, sales, revenue, advertising costs, and advertising installs across all paid traffic sources before and during the IAE. For such a report, we have developed our own reporting system. If paid marketing activity (in terms of costs and installs) was more or less at the same level before and during the IAE (or even decreased), and there is an uplift in metrics such as registrations, sales, and revenue, we conclude that the IAE drove these improvements and was a success. The third and final step of our IAE evaluation is to compare the total number of registrations, sales, revenue, advertising costs, and advertising installs across all paid traffic sources before and during the IAE. Summing up, despite the fact that OneLinks doesn’t track in-app events directly, you can still evaluate their effectiveness. To do this, you need to combine three types of data: from App Store Connect (at least impressions, page views, app opens, and in-app purchases with sales), retargeting data from the attribution platform where the OneLink was created to evaluate returned users (re-engagements and revenue), and a general uplift in registrations, sales, and revenue for all paid traffic sources considering marketing spends (since the in-app event is viewed not only by organic users but also by paid ones). This approach allows you to comprehensively evaluate the results of in-app events and determine whether it is worth the effort to launch them. According to our reports, it is. Wishing you profitable in-app events! Please, share in the comments how you track their results. Written by Elena Alekseeva, Team Lead ASO at Social Discovery Group Written by Elena Alekseeva, Team Lead ASO at Social Discovery Group

How To Measure The Results Of In-App Events When Onelinks Don’t Work

যখন Onelinks কাজ করে না তখন ইন-অ্যাপ ইভেন্টের ফলাফল কিভাবে পরিমাপ করা যায়

So messen Sie die Ergebnisse von In-App-Ereignissen, wenn Onelinks nicht funktionieren

Cómo medir los resultados de los eventos dentro de la aplicación cuando Onelinks no funciona

Comment mesurer les résultats des événements in-app lorsque Onelinks ne fonctionne pas

जब वनलिंक्स काम न करें तो इन-ऐप इवेंट के परिणामों को कैसे मापें

Onelinks が機能しない場合にアプリ内イベントの結果を測定する方法

Onelink가 작동하지 않을 때 인앱 이벤트 결과를 측정하는 방법

Como medir os resultados de eventos no aplicativo quando o Onelinks não funciona

Как измерить результаты событий внутри приложения, когда ссылки Onelink не работают

Onelinkler Çalışmadığında Uygulama İçi Etkinliklerin Sonuçları Nasıl Ölçülür?

Cách đo lường kết quả của các sự kiện trong ứng dụng khi Onelinks không hoạt động

当 Onelinks 不起作用时如何衡量应用内事件的结果

Why is it difficult to fit UI/UX into Scrum? “ - But we need designs!” © Frontend Developers Ideally, the Scrum process works like this: we have a nice and shiny product backlog, and every 2 weeks or so the team meets to select new items for the next sprint and agree on tasks that are needed to deliver those items. At the end of the sprint, we have a new increment of software. Sounds simple, right? But when it comes to projects that involve a significant amount of design you might face some challenges. Let’s talk about some of them. UI/UX Frontend engineers might not accept a story without designs Well, they of course can accept a story defined as a few words on a sticky note. However, estimation of this item can be difficult. Frontend folks quite often think in terms of components they need to implement. Without design, it’s hard to know what components they need to implement. Sure, I don’t say it’s the only way to estimate items. In fact, being able to estimate based on minimum information without design is a good skill. But I am pretty sure you might get this pushback from the frontend team in the form “Yeah, we can estimate it without designs, but you know, it’s super rough and the story can mean anything depending on specific designs”. Multi-disciplinary work is hard to fit into one Sprint We take items one by one from the backlog and show an increment after a fixed interval of time. Sounds good, but we somehow have to ensure that we are actually completing our work during sprints. Yeah, a lot of people think that accomplishing a sprint is the same as delivering the scope of stories we planned. Actually, it’s a bit more relaxed: requires us to achieve a Spring Goal. It allows some flexibility in the scope of stories. The problem is that if you have absolutely no idea about estimates, it’s impossible to commit to achieving a Sprint Goal. This is why we have all these estimation techniques like story points and T-shirt sizes. Let me tell you an ugly truth: if you need multiple specialties to finish the work, the estimation becomes super unreliable. Just predicting how long coding will take is hard. Add a design to this picture and hitting your Sprint Goal becomes a challenge. Remember our ideal process? Scrum Designers don’t like Scrum The way designers are taught to work is typically quite different from Scrum. Their typical process looks like this: Image source Few observations here. The UX process is typically multistage and tends to be lengthy. Software engineers are trained to work in 2-week sprints or even shorter. Creative folks treat their work as exploratory R&D activity without fixed deliverables defined in the beginning. Well, the software process is quite similar. The problem is that it’s similar, but ultimately not the same type of activity. The periodicity of development and design work is unlikely to match. There were attempts to synchronize. It can work, but bear in mind sometimes we are talking about 2 different activities. Why bother with Scrum? At this point, you might think, ok, if we see all these problems of trying to fit design activities into our Scrum process maybe we should not be using Scrum. I still believe that the overall idea of fixed-sprint delivery is a good one. I can see two reasons: Shorter iterations are good because it’s a risk reduction. Fixed interval delivery reduces complexity. Instead of endless synchronization meetings, you have fixed scrum events. Even authors of Scrum admit that “it’s hard to implement”. But all these difficulties are rather signs of underlying problems - Scrum just highlights them. The main question is “Can you develop a shippable increment within some reasonable timebox?” If not, it means you have problems with transparency and adaptability. Possible solutions As we discussed before, fitting design into Scrum is challenging, so there is one universal solution. However, I’ve seen several approaches that were effective if used in the right context. Let’s look at them starting from the most lightweight. Designs done by Engineers Developers should not be designers! This is what some fundamental books like The Inmates Are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper teach us. But it’s not a rule of nature and just one of these beliefs like “developers are bad testers”. Well, some are. But it doesn’t mean you cannot build a culture of product-oriented developers. One more thing is why have you initially decided to use Scrum as your process? Well, perhaps because your project is new and innovative if you know what you are doing :) These projects with high uncertainty benefit from iterative processes like Scrum. If it’s the case you should think if you actually need a heavy design process at this stage. For a new project, you can eliminate design as a separate activity completely. It’s not 1998 and we have things like design systems and libraries of components. The only participation of a dedicated design team you need is to help to create a design system. Specific features designs can be done by engineers. Optionally, designers can consult engineers and give them feedback. Perhaps, this is the most Agile and fast way to build complex interfaces. If you have started a startup company this approach is something you should definitely consider. Asynchronous Design Imagine you started with a developer-made design and created the first MVP of your product. By analyzing usage data from real users you will likely find bottlenecks in your product. Perhaps it’s a good time to invest in more systematic design. I would not really spend much time on the design activities during the MVP stage, but the post-MVP situation is different. You might face first problems of growth and many of these problems can be addressed by proper UX. The idea here is that you involve designers when the product has already been launched. So the designers can do user research, create prototypes and test with real users. All these activities can be done independent from the delivery of the software and this is why I call it asynchronous design. Discovery Track There are situations when it’s not acceptable to create designs by developers. Developers might be just against it. Another situation is an existing product with a big user base. If an MVP can be scrappy, existing products sxhould have a different bar of quality. In these situations, you would actually need to have a dedicated design activity and think about how to fit it into Sprint. From Scrum’s point of view, design can be considered as spike activities. Spikes are research items that are needed to make Stories ready (in terms of “definition of ready”). So when you see that a story requires designs to be finished you create a corresponding Spike item. Only when a spike is ready, you can mark your original item as “ready” (for instance, during your Sprint Refinement activity). As you can see, some work happens “in advance”, to unblock future sprints. This is what we call a discovery track. The main challenge for this approach is to plan for 2-3 sprints in advance, so you have a good idea of what items can be taken into the next sprint and for what items you need designs. Optimization It can be quite dangerous to require a ready design for all your stories. Even though “dual-track Agile” is becoming very popular, you should be aware that it can make your Scrum process very much like Waterfall. Design should not be done in isolation in a functional silo and thrown over the fence to developers. You at least should try to involve engineers in the design process. Another approach is to practice in-sprint Design. In that case, developers might accept some stories without designs or with partial designs and work collaboratively with designers during the sprint. Conclusion As we can see, there is no silver bullet. Product development is hard and the process tends to be messy. Having spoken with a number of people from different product companies, it seems that there is no simple one-fit-all approach to the product development process. The real project will likely involve a combination of tactics I listed in my article. Also, it’s important to be adaptive and be able quickly to figure out current teams’ needs and bottlenecks. Also published here.

Integrating UI/UX Design in Agile Scrum Methodology

The market offers a wide range of solution providers to choose from. The Best Identity Verification Software category on any listing platform includes over 200 products. Add to it all sorts of hardware devices, and you’ll get the impression that the market is over-saturated, and there are plenty of go-to solutions for handling ID documents and Biometric verification for any business use case. Identity Verification Below is a 9-step guide that will empower you with insights on how to choose the best Identity Verification (IDV) software provider effectively, guiding your selection towards ones that excel in delivering precision, security, and the utmost trustworthiness in the field of identity verification. Step 1: Make sure that document capture is fully automated If you ask any forensic expert how to verify ID documents reliably, they will likely give you the following answer: first of all, make sure you have a physical document at hand. The reality, however, is often far from such ideals. In the face of digital transformation, the capture process largely determines the check’s credibility. At the capture stage, an identity verification solution should cope with two things: recognize the submitted document and assess its quality. The thing is that software solutions use the capabilities of the user’s device, and rely on the user’s accuracy in taking photos. A bad camera, poor lighting, glares, or a skewed image make it difficult to read the information. This may lead to either errors or asking users to re-take photos over and over again until they meet the quality requirements. The best solutions can assess an image's quality and fine-tune it if necessary: adjust brightness or contrast, remove glares, or deskew the photo if it was shot at an angle. As for document type recognition, it’s mostly a matter of Unfortunately, many identity verification solutions still add two extra steps in the user journey: “choose your document type” and “choose your country.” UX. You can avoid making your users do extra clicks and typing by choosing a solution that identifies the document type and its origin country. As simple as it sounds, such capabilities require the vendor to invest a lot of time, money, and effort into creating a comprehensive document template database. For now, let’s just make a mental note that, ideally, your identity verification solution should do most of the work automatically. Questions to ask a vendor: Does your solution identify the document type automatically? Does it assess the document image quality? What are the criteria? Can it enhance the image’s quality to improve the data's readability? Step 2: Test-drive document checks Identity verification solutions must comply with ICAO and BSI guidelines for checking international documents, visas, etc. For domestic ID documents, though, there may be their own variants of execution of security elements of protection that require specific checks. Ideally, an identity verification solution should offer a check for each aspect: both standardized international features and local characteristics. The denser the coverage with checks, the more credible the conclusion about the authenticity and validity of the document. You can judge a vendor to provide first-class performance when their solution performs a long list of checks, plus runs massive cross-checks comparing the data from different elements to make sure they match. Document checks to ask for: Automatic document type identification Visual inspection zone verification MRZ validation Barcode type and format reading and validation Document liveness check (includes checks of holograms and screenshot detection) RFID chip detection and reading Cross-checks of the data fetched from different elements Step 3: Ensure that NFC-based RFID chip verification is in place A radio-frequency identification—or simply —chip is a tiny device that modern electronic ID documents contain. RFID chips store document holders’ data. The ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) strictly regulates the exact list of the data encoded in the chip. RFID Usually, reading this information entails using special passport readers or NFC technology built into mobile phones. You should be especially careful if it’s the latter. In the case of a remote process, there’s a risk that fraudsters can intercept and modify verification results. That’s why a good vendor needs to practice a zero-trust-to-mobile approach. In practice, the data needs to be re-verified to ensure the chip is not cloned or its data manipulated. Here’s an example of how Regula tackles this issue. RFID sessions can be re-verified on the server side in addition to the checks conducted on mobiles. Thanks to this, the data of the check is impossible to compromise. All this is done strictly on-premises: the results of the verification session are stored on a customer’s server, so it’s possible to get back to them afterward. This approach is considered the most reliable and secure way to verify a document with an NFC chip. Questions to ask a vendor: Does your identity verification solution read and verify an RFID chip? Can it read the information encoded in the chip? Do you apply a zero-trust-to-mobile approach? If so, how exactly does it work in your solution? Step 4: Explore capabilities for Biometric checks Validating the ID document is just a part of identity verification. Another part is ensuring that the person submitting it is the legitimate holder. That’s done with the help of biometric checks. Biometrics is a broad term that may imply a wide range of checks: face, fingerprints, voice, or even iris recognition. Most of them are overkill for regular business’ digital onboarding, but state authorities can require them, for example, when you apply for a visa. The most common way to run a biometric check for business is by using face biometrics. The process is simple: the user takes a selfie, and then the technology matches that photo with the photos in the submitted ID document (e.g., in the visual inspection zone and the RFID chip), and flags if there’s anything wrong. The essential feature of a proper face recognition module is liveness detection. That means you need not only to determine that it’s the same person in the photographs but also to make sure that the selfie is real. Sometimes attackers try to pass off an edited photo as a real selfie. Sometimes, they might use various masks and even deepfake technology. A good identity verification solution should be able to detect such issues. There are two types of liveness verification: passive and active. A passive liveness check implies the use of a static selfie, while active liveness requires the user to perform a series of simple movements: rotating the head, moving closer or further away, etc. Questions to ask a vendor: Do you perform biometric verification? What components does it include (face detection, face matching, face search, age verification, etc.)? Do you provide active or passive liveness checks? What PAD (Presentation Attack Detection) do you protect from? Step 5: Investigate the database of supported documents Cutting-edge technologies on their own aren’t enough for thorough identity verification. The most reliable IDV requires a deep knowledge of identity documents. This usually comes in the form of a document template database containing detailed information for every document: layout, fields, data recording methods, security elements, and more. Gathering such a collection requires tremendous resources and a solid background in document forensics. Ideally, your vendor should have seasoned forensic experts on their team to guarantee the comprehensiveness of templates and competent maintenance of the database. The importance of this cannot be overstated. If the vendor has thoroughly examined thousands of document types, its software solutions can easily distinguish one from another, fully read them, and extract the required data, therefore effectively verifying them as a result. The database needs to be extensive, as even within one country, there can be multiple versions of a document based on the date of issuance. Considering the frequent renewal and re-issuance of identity documents, the database should be regularly updated too. Cooperation with international organizations and security agencies is also a point in favor of the provider. Established relationships help them regularly expand the database with new document types and share the best practices in detecting document fraud. Questions to ask a vendor: How long have you been operating in the identity verification industry? Are there experts on your team with hands-on experience as forensic analysts? Do you have a document template database? How many items does it include? If there is no document in the database, how long does it take to add? Is it proprietary or bought from third parties? Step 6: Evaluate the time to value Reliability and completeness of checks are all good, but they won’t be of help if the integration process takes ages and blows up your budget. The pressure comes from multiple sides. On one side, there are regulators whose requirements are better met sooner than later. Then, there’s also your product and workflows, which will likely demand some customization from the identity verification solution. Add to it a learning curve that, for some solutions, can be rather steep, and lengthy. Questions to ask a vendor: Is it possible to build your solution into a web app? How fast will we be able to get up and running? What does the integration process look like? What customization options does your solution offer? Are they available out of the box, or will they require additional configuration/costs? Step 7: Check out the compliance of the workflows Regardless of the industry, safeguarding customer data is of the utmost importance. Therefore, it’s crucial to find out how your identity verification provider addresses the matter. When it comes to working with customers’ personally identifiable information (PII) during identity verification, there are two primary approaches: where vendors handle the storage and processing of customer data on their own infrastructure. A Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) scenario, where you store and process your customers' PII within your own secured perimeter. An On-premises approach, While the SaaS use case can save you time and the expenses associated with securing the data on your own, it’s even more critical to thoroughly examine the vendor’s procedures for customer data security and protection. Data breaches aren’t uncommon. An on-premises option places a higher emphasis on data privacy and security. Since no third parties have access to PII, it reduces the risk of breaches. However, extra protection comes at a price. The maintenance of infrastructure and reliability for following security policies is on you, so you’ll need to budget resources for engineering and security training for employees. Questions to ask a vendor: What type of solution do you offer: cloud or on-prem? Do you collect and store the personal data of end users? If it’s cloud… What certifications does your service have? (e.g., SOC1 type 2, HIPAA, etc.) Where can I read your security policy? What’s your service availability time? Step 8: Try to contact tech support Salespeople might be responsive before making the sale, but a company’s true colors show when a customer faces difficulties or has a request. If a vendor can provide prompt and professional technical support, it saves you a lot of time, effort, and headaches. Ideally, it’s good to have more than one way to contact support: by phone, email, live chat, or messengers. In most companies, additional communication channels come with the premium support option. Such support may include a dedicated manager, and the ability to communicate with the vendor’s team in real-time, 24/7. If this option is not available, pay attention to the response time SLA. This is the time in which the vendor commits to respond to a client’s issue. It’s usually defined by the support policy. As for cases when a client needs off-hours assistance, the vendor’s website should provide all essential instructions, guides, and FAQs. Comprehensive documentation should answer 90% of the questions, so pay attention to how thoroughly it is made, if it includes demo examples, how often it is updated, and if it’s localized to your language. Questions to ask a vendor: What’s your response time for support requests? Do you have a premium support option? Is support documentation comprehensive and easy to navigate? Step 9: Find customer references If you made it through the steps above, you can confidently trust the results. Still, it’s always a good idea to look for additional social proof from companies that have already succeeded in what you’re trying to achieve. Here, we advise you to conduct your own research and find as many reviews about the vendor as possible. The first go-to source of information is the case study section on the vendor’s website. There, you can look for stories from customers from your niche and find relevant use cases. For example, if you’re a crypto platform on a quest to deploy KYC, then KYC-related cases from banks will also give you valuable insights. Also, pay attention to who a vendor’s existing customers are. The presence of well-known names is a good sign. If the vendor has state-level organizations and security agencies, such as border controls, among their customers, it’s also great, because they have the strictest requirements for identity verification. Also, you may want to research what the media say about different vendors. Consider exploring not only so-called tier-one resources, such as The New York Times or Business Insider but focus more on industry-specific publications that specialize in covering identity verification and cybersecurity. This approach will broaden your research and provide a more comprehensive understanding of different vendors' reputations. Among such media outlets are: Biometric Update, Help Net Security, Infosecurity Magazine, Source Security, Identity Week, Find Biometrics, and others. Try to find out: Are there any references available in open sources from customers in my industry? Can the vendor provide those references on request? Are there relevant use cases in the vendors’ customer success stories? Are there any mentions of the vendor in the industry and/or tier-one media? In conclusion, this 9-step guide empowers you to choose Identity Verification software that aligns with your specific needs while excelling in precision, security, and trustworthiness, ensuring your data and operations are in safe hands. With the right software, you can confidently navigate the evolving landscape of identity verification for a secure and seamless future. If you’re struggling with finding the right solution for your business use case – feel free to get in touch. Also published . here

How to Choose the Best Identity Verification Software

A Floating City and The Blockade Runners by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . Crockston’s trick here CROCKSTON’s TRICK. It was not long before the whole crew knew Miss Halliburtt’s story, which Crockston was no longer hindered from telling. By the Captain’s orders he was released from the capstan, and the cat-o’-nine-tails returned to its place. “A pretty animal,” said Crockston, “especially when it shows its velvety paws.” As soon as he was free, he went down to the sailors’ berths, found a small portmanteau, and carried it to Miss Jenny; the young girl was now able to resume her feminine attire, but she remained in her cabin, and did not again appear on deck. As for Crockston, it was well and duly agreed that, as he was no more a sailor than a horse-guard, he should be exempt from all duty on board. In the meanwhile the “Dolphin,” with her twin screws cutting the waves, sped rapidly across the Atlantic, and there was nothing now to do but keep a strict look out. The day following the discovery of Miss Jenny’s identity, James Playfair paced the deck at the poop with a rapid step; he had made no attempt to see the young girl and resume the conversation of the day before. Whilst he was walking to and fro, Crockston passed him several times, looking at him askant with a satisfied grin; he evidently wanted to speak to the Captain, and at last his persistent manner attracted the attention of the latter, who said to him, somewhat impatiently,— “How now, what do you want? You are turning round me like a swimmer round a buoy: when are you going to leave off?” “Excuse me, Captain,” answered Crockston, winking, “I wanted to speak to you.” “Speak, then.” “Oh, it is nothing very much, I only wanted to tell you frankly that you are a good fellow at bottom.” “Why at bottom?” “At bottom and surface also.” “I don’t want your compliments.” “I am not complimenting you, I shall wait to do that when you have gone to the end.” “To what end?” “To the end of your task.” “Ah! I have a task to fulfil?” “Decidedly, you have taken the young girl and myself on board; good. You have given up your cabin to Miss Halliburtt; good. You released me from the cat-o’-nine-tails; nothing could be better. You are going to take us straight to Charleston; that’s delightful, but it is not all.” “How not all?” cried James Playfair, amazed at Crockston’s boldness. “No, certainly not,” replied the latter, with a knowing look, “the father is prisoner there.” “Well, what about that?” “Well, the father must be rescued.” “Rescue Miss Halliburtt’s father?” “Most certainly, and it is worth risking something for such a noble man and courageous citizen as he.” “Master Crockston,” said James Playfair, frowning, “I am not in the humour for your jokes, so have a care what you say.” “You misunderstand me, Captain,” said the American. “I am not joking in the least, but speaking quite seriously. What I have proposed may at first seem very absurd to you; when you have thought it over you will see that you cannot do otherwise.” “What, do you mean that I must deliver Mr. Halliburtt?” “Just so, you can demand his release of General Beauregard, who will not refuse you.” “But if he does refuse me?” “In that case,” replied Crockston, in a deliberate tone, “we must use stronger measures, and carry off the prisoner by force.” “So,” cried James Playfair, who was beginning to get angry, “so, not content with passing through the Federal fleets and forcing the blockade of Charleston, I must run out to sea again from under the cannon of the forts, and this to deliver a gentleman I know nothing of, one of those Abolitionists whom I detest, one of those journalists who shed ink instead of their blood!” “Oh! it is but a cannon-shot more or less!” added Crockston. “Master Crockston,” said James Playfair, “mind what I say; if ever you mention this affair again to me, I will send you to the hold for the rest of the passage, to teach you manners.” Thus saying the Captain dismissed the American, who went off murmuring, “Ah, well, I am not altogether displeased with this conversation: at any rate, the affair is broached; it will do, it will do!” James Playfair had hardly meant it when he said an Abolitionist whom I detest; he did not in the least side with the Federals, but he did not wish to admit that the question of slavery was the predominant reason for the civil war of the United States, in spite of President Lincoln’s formal declaration. Did he then think that the Southern States, eight out of thirty-six, were right in separating when they had been voluntarily united? Not so; he detested the Northerners, and that was all; he detested them as brothers separated from the common family—true Englishmen—who had thought it right to do what he, James Playfair, disapproved of with regard to the United States: these were the political opinions of the Captain of the “Dolphin.” But more than this, the American war interfered with him personally, and he had a grudge against those who had caused this war; one can understand, then, how he would receive a proposition to deliver an Abolitionist, thus bringing down on him the Confederates, with whom he pretended to do business. However, Crockston’s insinuation did not fail to disturb him, he cast the thought from him, but it returned unceasingly to his mind, and when Miss Jenny came on deck the next day for a few minutes, he dared not look her in the face. And really it was a great pity, for this young girl with the fair hair and sweet, intelligent face deserved to be looked at by a young man of thirty. But James felt embarrassed in her presence; he felt that this charming creature who had been educated in the school of misfortune possessed a strong and generous soul; he understood that his silence towards her inferred a refusal to acquiesce in her dearest wishes; besides, Miss Jenny never looked out for James Playfair, neither did she avoid him. Thus for the first few days they spoke little or not at all to each other. Miss Halliburtt scarcely ever left her cabin, and it is certain she would never have addressed herself to the Captain of the “Dolphin” if it had not been for Crockston’s strategy, which brought both parties together. The worthy American was a faithful servant of the Halliburtt family, he had been brought up in his master’s house and his devotion knew no bounds. His good sense equalled his courage and energy, and, as has been seen, he had a way of looking things straight in the face. He was very seldom discouraged, and could generally find a way out of the most intricate dangers with a wonderful skill. This honest fellow had taken it into his head to deliver Mr. Halliburtt, to employ the Captain’s ship, and the Captain himself for this purpose, and to return with him to England. Such was his intention, so long as the young girl had no other object than to rejoin her father and share his captivity. It was this Crockston tried to make the Captain understand, as we have seen, but the enemy had not yet surrendered, on the contrary. “Now,” said he, “it is absolutely necessary that Miss Jenny and the Captain come to an understanding; if they are going to be sulky like this all the passage we shall get nothing done: they must speak, discuss; let them dispute even, so long as they talk, and I’ll be hanged if during their conversation James Playfair does not propose himself what he refused me to-day.” But when Crockston saw that the young girl and the young man avoided each other, he began to be perplexed. “We must look sharp,” said he to himself, and the morning of the fourth day he entered Miss Halliburtt’s cabin, rubbing his hands with an air of perfect satisfaction. “Good news!” cried he, “good news! You will never guess what the Captain has proposed to me. A very noble young man he is. Now try.” “Ah!” replied Jenny, whose heart beat violently, “has he proposed to—” “To deliver Mr. Halliburtt, to carry him off from the Confederates, and bring him to England.” “Is it true?” cried Jenny. “It is, as I say, miss. What a good-hearted man this James Playfair is! These English are either all good or all bad. Ah! he may reckon on my gratitude, and I am ready to cut myself in pieces if it would please him.” Jenny’s joy was profound on hearing Crockston’s words. Deliver her father! she had never dared to think of such a plan, and the Captain of the “Dolphin” was going to risk his ship and crew! “That’s what he is,” added Crockston; “and this, Miss Jenny, is well worth an acknowledgment from you.” “More than an acknowledgment,” cried the young girl; “a lasting friendship!” And immediately she left the cabin to find James Playfair, and express to him the sentiments which flowed from her heart. “Getting on by degrees,” muttered the American. James Playfair was pacing to and fro on the poop, and, as may be thought, he was very much surprised, not to say amazed, to see the young girl go up to him, her eyes moist with grateful tears, and holding out her hand to him saying,— “Thank you, sir, thank you for your kindness, which I should never have dared to expect from a stranger.” “Miss,” replied the Captain, as if he understood nothing of what she was talking, and could not understand, “I do not know—” “Nevertheless, sir, you are going to brave many dangers, perhaps compromise your interests for me, and you have done so much already in offering me on board an hospitality to which I have no right whatever—” “Pardon me, Miss Jenny,” interrupted James Playfair, “but I protest again I do not understand your words; I have acted towards you as any well-bred man would towards a lady, and my conduct deserves neither so many thanks nor so much gratitude.” “Mr. Playfair,” said Jenny, “it is useless to pretend any longer; Crockston has told me all!” “Ah!” said the Captain, “Crockston has told you all, then I understand less than ever the reason for your leaving your cabin, and saying these words which—” Whilst speaking the Captain felt very much embarrassed; he remembered the rough way in which he had received the American’s overtures, but Jenny, fortunately for him, did not give him time for further explanation; she interrupted him, holding out her hand and saying,— “Mr. James, I had no other object in coming on board your ship except to go to Charleston, and there, however cruel the slave-holders may be, they will not refuse to let a poor girl share her father’s prison, that was all; I had never thought of a return as possible; but since you are so generous as to wish for my father’s deliverance, since you will attempt everything to save him, be assured you have my deepest gratitude.” James did not know what to do or what part to assume; he bit his lip; he dared not take the hand offered him; he saw perfectly that Crockston had compromised him, so that escape was impossible; at the same time he had no thoughts of delivering Mr. Halliburtt, and getting complicated in a disagreeable business: but how dash to the ground the hope which had arisen in this poor girl’s heart? How refuse the hand which she held out to him with a feeling of such profound friendship? How change to tears of grief the tears of gratitude which filled her eyes? So the young man tried to reply evasively, in a manner which would insure his liberty of action for the future. “Miss Jenny,” said he, “rest assured I will do everything in my power for—” And he took the little hand in both of his, but with the gentle pressure he felt his heart melt and his head grow confused: words to express his thoughts failed him. He stammered out some incoherent words,— “Miss—Miss Jenny—for you—” Crockston, who was watching him, rubbed his hands, grinning and repeating to himself,— “It will come! it will come! it has come!” How James Playfair would have managed to extricate himself from his embarrassing position no one knows, but fortunately for him, if not for the “Dolphin,” the man on watch was heard crying,— “Ahoy, officer of the watch!” “What now?” asked Mr. Mathew. “A sail to windward!” James Playfair, leaving the young girl, immediately sprang to the shrouds of the main-mast. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jules Verne (2022). A Floating City and The Blockade Runners. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/67829/67829-h/67829-h.htm This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

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