Who’s looking at you? Apparently everything!

Two stories today that caught my attention are:

Facial Recognition App Detects, Captures Smiles Technology intrudes more & more into “human” territory

Meet Swivl, The Motion Tracking iPhone Dock That Always Keeps You On Camera More and more automatics!

Now, it would be really cool if Swivl tracked you and kept you on camera using facial detection but it does not: instead it uses a hand held transmitter/controller to “know” where to point the camera.  Even with that it will make a great addition to a video blogger, web episode producer as the producer/talent can move and have the camera follow them as they do.

The SmileClick App is much more interesting:

SmileClick is a newly launched, unique application that uses proprietary facial recognition software to detect how big a photo subject is smiling. Once the app determines that the person to be photographed is sporting a large, genuine smile, it automatically snaps the picture at the right time, helping to create happy memories.

Waltham MA based  Affectiva takes it one step further:

…has facial recognition software that can accurately determine the difference between a happy smile, an embarrassed smile and a smirk!

As well as other emotions. Currently used only in focus groups and the like, wouldn’t it make a great source of metadata if, as well as the person’s face being (accurately) identified, there was another tag “smiling”, “embarrassed”, “annoyed”, et. al. I see it as inevitable but a few years off.