New internet tool 'searches faces'
Friday, 29 Sep 2006 15:35
Internet users will be able to search for people by face
Science In Focus
Click here to see how British small businesses are creating innovative, low carbon business ideas, on inthenews.co.uk. Full Story
Next-generation internet search engines will be able to look people up by searching for their faces as well as their names, a Swedish scientist has claimed.
Jan Erik Solem, a researcher in applied mathematics from Malmö University in Sweden, outlined the technology behind a new internet search tool today which allows computers to analyse physical features on a three-dimensional image basis.
Mr Solem believes that the product, developed during work on image analysis and computer vision at Malmö University, has commercial viability and has launched a new company, Polar Rose, to attempt to exploit this possibility.
"Since there is no such search service in existence today, it's going to be really exciting to see how it is received," he said.
"If it's a success, then we'll be saddled with the luxury problem of competing with giants like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo."
The technology works by building up a three-dimensional picture of an individual's face from a number of photographs, calculating physical features by working out the distance from the camera to the face in question.
As well as search engines, other sectors could also benefit from the technology, Mr Solem argued.
"Much of our research is geared to automating work at the computer. In city planning, for example, and architecture many hours of work are devoted to creating three-dimensional models manually," he said.
"If that process can be simplified, there will be incredible amounts of money saved. Another conceivable area of use is in gaming, where this technology would make it possible to put objects into the virtual world by photographing them."