New facial app has ‘scary’ realism
Posted March 19, 2014 10:54 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – It’s meant to bring a bit of a human spark to social media.
It’s called FaceFries, a new app for your phone courtesy of SFU and UBC researchers that brings the high-end facial image processing to your fingertips.
It can blend faces together, age them realistically and much more.
Co-designer Steve DiPaola with SFU says it’s a cut above anything else.
“The thing that is closest to it is what you see in video games and computer graphics, and movies. And that’s the big innovation, that we were able to move that down into a phone and give that level of creative character personality power in a mobile app.”
DiPaola is fascinated with faces, which inspired the app’s creation.
“Faces are the most amazing surface there is,” he says.
He says the app’s realism is uncanny, bringing social interaction to a new personal level.
He also says it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before.
“It’s got artificial intelligence in it. It’s got a high level of realism which might even be, at some point creepy to some people. So it’s not really in a cartoon space, it’s in ‘I just made an older version of myself’ space.”
The app is available now for iPhones, for free, on iTunes.
An Android version is in the works.
