Mood-recognition biometricsNew tools identify a person's expression, estimate their mood

Published 15 July 2011

Biometrics company releases software that allows users to “cartoonize” photos; cartoons aside, the company announced the release of more free API (application programming interface) face detection tools: the service can identify a person’s expression as well as estimate their mood

Android app for play may have security potential // Source: android.com

For those who loved Who Framed Roger Rabbit, there is now chance to be a Toon in Toontown. The Tides Group recently released the latest version of their Android App “Cartoonizer Free.”

Cartoonizer is a photo edition tool that provides users with the capabilities to cartoonize their photos. What does it mean to “Cartoonize” a photo? The company says that the Cartoonizer uses the Face.com Face Recognition API to detect and recognize the position of the facial features of the person in the photo, and then it automatically adds the features to a cartoon image.

Face.com say its API is so powerful and accurate that it provides information on gender, head rotation in the 3 axis, whether the person is smiling, and whether the individual is wearing glasses. The Cartoonizer Free app uses all this information to automate the process of cartoonizing photos. Once this cartoonization process is complete, the user can also add more features to the photo and edit all the facial features. For example, the user can edit the hue, contrast, brightness, and saturation of each element, and make it match with the skin color of the person in the photo.

Cartoonizer is now available in the Android Market.

Roger Rabbit and cartoons are one thing, but Networkworld notes that after Face.com launched its free API last year, the company’s service was called the “facial recognition software that will put a name to every photograph in the Internet.” Developers have been using Face.com’s Photo Finder to allow people to “search for anyone” on the web with “90% accuracy on social networking sites.” Face.com had originally limited the software due to “concerns about invasion of privacy.”

Networkworld says that after more than 20,000 developers had tried out Face.com’s free APIs, the software company launched a newsletter for developers which announced more free API face detection tools. This time, the service can identify a person’s expression as well as estimate their mood.