Apple has bought a San Diego
startup working on Artificial Intelligence technology that analyzes facial expressions
to detect emotions. Facial Recognition is an area in which several major tech
companies have interest, though it’s not without controversy.
Facebook decided against releasing
its Moments photo app in Europe because of fears over privacy regulations and
Google Photos only offers its facial recognition feature in the US. Apple has
also made some other acquisitions. Faceshift, a motion capture startup focused
on facial analysis, and Perceptio a company with deep learning image recognition
technology designed for mobile processors.
Improving Image recognition is a
hot topic in Silicon Valley where Apple rivals Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc.
Google and others are investing heavily in Artificial Intelligence techniques.
Apple has expressed interest in the field. In a 2014 patent application, it
described a software system that would analyze and identify people moods based
on a variety of clues including facial expression.
In October, Apple confirmed that it
had acquired another artificial Intelligence startup VocalIQ Ltd. that aims to
improve a computer ability to understand natural speech. In May, Emotient
announced it had been granted a patent for a method of collecting and labeling as
many as 100,000 facial images a day so computers can better recognize different
expressions.
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