Smile! (Or Else it Won't Take Your Picture)
September 17, 2007 by Lauren
There's a new Sony camera on the market that looks for your smile. Ever find yourself taking pictures without smiling faces in them? This camera looks to remedy that problem by incorporating facial recognition technology. The general idea is, either everyone looks happy or this camera won't take the picture.
Okay, so you can turn the feature off. Nonetheless, the “smile shutter” will scan your group of up to eight people. By looking at people's facial features, it decides who is smiling and to what degree they are smiling. There are apparently three such degrees (AKA settings) of a smile that go something like 'grin, full smile, and belly laugh.'
The photographer can decide which person he or she wants to smile, and the picture won't be taken until that specific person has a [forced] smirk on their face. I think a human can do a fine job of saying, "I'm not taking this photograph until you say cheese," as well as a fine job of deciding who has shut eyes or if the positions are right, all without the aid of a borderline artificial intelligence camera. But hey, what do I know.
Well, I say again, this technology can be turned off. That seems to be an increasingly good thing here, which isn't good for the camera's reputation or its likelihood to sell. Luckily for Sony, there will always be mass herds of people who buy the camera because of how intensely cool and advanced "facial recognition" sounds on the box. For those people and for anyone else who purchases this gadget for around $350, I get the feeling the smile feature will be amusing the first few times and turned off forever more.
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