What Your Face Can Do?

You face is not just a name-tag. It displays much more information that machines can read!

On 1st September 2017, the term ‘happy meal’ has been redefined. Fast food lovers in China now just need to flash their smiles to get their meal. Alibaba’s Ant Financial has teamed up with KFC to debut this ‘smile to pay’ service, which enables customers to process their payment simply by smiling after placing their order at one of the KFC’s self-serve screens. A 3D camera scans the customer’s face to verify their identity and the technology is only available to customers who are registered on Alipay. (CNBC, 2017) What’s more, this technology is provided by a small startup based in Beijing – Face++.

Founded in 2011, Face++ has been valued around $1 billion recently (Knight, 2017). Face++ offers facial recognition technology uses computer vision and data mining to provide detection, recognition and analysis of faces. It enables users to easily add leading, deep learning-based image analysis recognition technologies into the applications, with simple and powerful APIs (application programming interface) and SDKs (software development kit). (Face++, 2017) Till now, the technology from Face++ is already being used in many popular apps. Besides Alipay, Face++ helps Didi, China’s dominant ride-hailing company, to solve fraud and cheating by letting passengers confirm legitimate drivers. Meitu, a famous photo editing application, cooperated with Face++ to provide automatic makeup, beauty effects and photo beautification for users. (The Economist, 2017)

In the domain of detecting criminals, Face++ also performed excellently and impressively. Based on the large centralized database of ID card photos in China, Face++ collaborated with local governments to identify suspected criminals in video from surveillance cameras, which are omnipresent in the country. Even when the image or footage being analyzed are far from perfect, Face++ keeps its error rate nearly 0. (Knight, 2017)

In sum, we have to admit that technology is rapidly catching up or exceed the human ability to read faces.

Reference:

CNBC. (2017). Alibaba launches ‘smile to pay’ facial recognition system at KFC in China. Available: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/04/alibaba-launches-smile-to-pay-facial-recognition-system-at-kfc-china.html. Last accessed 08-10-2017

Knight, W. (2017). Face-detecting systems in China now authorize payments, provide access to facilities, and track down criminals. Will other countries follow?. Available: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603494/10-breakthrough-technologies-2017-paying-with-your-face/. Last accessed 08-10-2017

Face++. (2017). What is Face++ Cognitive Services?. Available: https://www.faceplusplus.com/about-us/. Last accessed 08-10-2017

The Economist. (2017). What machines can tell from your face. Available: https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21728617-life-age-facial-recognition-what-machines-can-tell-your-face. Last accessed 08-10-2017