Google Glass will be able to recognize emotions

Startup Emotient , based in San Diego, announced the start of work on technology that will allow Google Glass glasses to recognize the emotions of people. The budget of the first phase of the project is $ 6 million. In the long term we are talking about the creation of an analytical cross-platform engine that will recognize emotions any device with a camera. API will be based on the model of SaaS.

Part of the funding assumed Seth Neiman (Seth Neiman), who was formerly the chief partner in a venture capital fund Crosspoint Venture Partners, and now heads the fund Handbag. Previous investor, Intel Capital, is also involved in the project to date has invested 8 million since it was founded a startup in 2012.

Emotient argues that the funds will be put on the "total commercialization" of technology through Emotient API, together with products for industries such as retail or health care provider. In this case, the developer will have to compete with the project Affectiva from KPCB / Horizon Ventures, which specializes in a number of marketing and advertising industry.

In Emotient believe that their product compares favorably with Affectiva by the method of presenting information. "Our technology allows you to communicate about feelings and emotions in real time, as well as more precise work in unpredictable conditions, for example, in the crowd," says Vicky Herrera (Vikki Herrera).

Emotient revealed some details about his first application created for Google Glass (glassware). First of all, it is intended for use in retail sales, to help sellers accurately recognize people's reactions to the proposed goods and services. This is especially useful for teaching beginners sellers.

"All successful business people know that you" get as much mete out ", so the ability to objectively and accurately detect the reaction of potential customers allows retailers to effectively plan and build behavior," says Ken Denmen (Ken Denman), CEO Emotient. Although direct sales will be the first area of ​​application of the new technology, it will not be available for any user Google Glass. Google itself is going to stick to a certain etiquette to not turn into Glasshole (great pun).

Emotient technology is based on identifying and tracking the expression of seven basic emotions: pleasure, surprise, frustration, anger, fear, disgust and contempt. To do this, track the movement of 19 facial combinations that also allows you to define more complex emotions such as frustration and embarrassment. Google Glass is the first wearable device using products Emotient, although it has already been successfully ported to devices running Android. But to stop there, developers are not going to, because Intel is not only a strategic investor, but the buyer. The corporation is going to introduce the library Emotient the next version of its RealSense, formerly called Perceptual Computing. This SDK, which will open the emotion recognition technology to a wide circle of developers.

Source: habrahabr.ru/post/215113/