A company called FacialNetwork has developed the first real-time facial recognition app for Google Glass that targets consumers, enabling Glass users to gleam detailed information about nearby people just by looking at them.
Called NameTag, a demo of the technology is shown in the YouTube video below. Photos of famous people like Kanye West or Bryan Cranston, the actor of Breaking Bad fame, were strewn about the house as NameTag users tested the functionality.
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In the video, apparent users also claim to successfully find information about each other. After one user expresses doubt that the app would work with other people at the demo, he allegedly finds another user’s Facebook account simply by snapping a photo of his face with Glass and searching it on NameTag.
Limited information on how the app works is available. A website for NameTag claims "facial recognition software processes facial data points and compares them to other faces in the database." A press release explains that the database pulls information from social networks, dating sites like OkCupid.com and Match.com, and “more than 450,000 entries in the National Sex Offender Registry and other criminal databases."
Currently, Google Glass does not support facial recognition, so right now this kind of app likely wouldn’t be made available if Glass were released to the public today. However, NameTag creator Kevin Alan Tussy says he isn’t worried about finding a platform for this kind of technology.
"There will be many providers of augmented reality headsets and even if facial recognition is not supported by some, I’m confident that there will be solutions for such limitations,” Tussy said in the press release. “We are not publishing any information about of our financiers or investors at this time but I will say that we are involved with some very well-respected individuals and Venture Funds."
This isn’t necessarily the first technology of its kind for Google Glass. In May, a healthcare app called MedRef showed facial recognition capabilities that pulled from medial records. NameTag is different, however, because it targets available information on consumers at large.