Yesterday Omron released a very interesting piece of technology “Smile Measurement Software”, basically, and as you will see in the picture below, Omron is able to detect the smile factor of one or several people on a scale of 0% to 100%, here is an explanation from Omron Staff regarding this new software.

“The software measures’ how much a subject is smiling and outputs a ‘smile factor’ on a scale of 0 to 100% 3D face mapping technology ensures accurate smile detection and measurement even if the subject is not looking directly at the camera, something which other technologies on the market have not always been able to do, and which opens up avenues for applications in mobile devices.

The software is capable of processing multiple faces at one time. Processing speed is less than a tenth of a second (0.044 seconds to be precise, using a Pentium 4 pc with. 3.2GHz processing speed). At 46Kb, the program is small enough to be embedded on an IC chip for mobile apps.

Applications we envisage are:
- Digital cameras (for taking pictures when the subject’s smiling).
- (my personal favorite) a ‘smile checker’ (!!)for people working in the service industry.
- in human-robot communication interfaces
- new product testing by food manufacturers – as a means of checking, for example, whether low calorie alternatives give the same pleasure kicks as higher calorie originals etc.”