OK, we have a bunch of really talented computer people here. I have a challenge for you. A client in Trinidad wants a hand held facial recognition system. Right now, that is the extent of his spec, I will get more tomorrow. Does anybody have any help on this? In a quick search, I found very little. It's the hand held part that concerns me, and are we working against a known data base. Whatcha got, guys?
My first thought is a two-part solution. I think you may have trouble with the processing for recognition on a handheld device, and even if you don't, storing an image database is going to be... hard.
So, how 'bout if the mobile app snaps an image, sends it to a backend which attempts a match, and returns either match info or a 'not found'?
Not my particular area of development, but thought I'd take a stab.
Does this really not already exist? Sounds like a specialized version of Google Goggles...
What? There's not an iPhone app for that yet?
I think you have a bigger potential market than you think...
ransom wrote: My first thought is a two-part solution. I think you may have trouble with the processing for recognition on a handheld device, and even if you don't, storing an image database is going to be... hard. So, how 'bout if the mobile app snaps an image, sends it to a backend which attempts a match, and returns either match info or a 'not found'? Not my particular area of development, but thought I'd take a stab. Does this really not already exist? Sounds like a specialized version of Google Goggles...
Yep, I agree with your assumptions and solution. Most handheld devices wont have the processing power to make the match or the storage capacity to hold the database....ahhhh, to hell with most, none of them will. It will need to upload the pic to a remote system and have it processed there.
dollraves wrote: What? There's not an iPhone app for that yet? I think you have a bigger potential market than you think...
Not as far off as you might think...
http://www.thirdfactor.com/2010/02/02/animetrics-launches-biometric-app-for-apple-store
Sorry I couldn't help earlier, stupid work got in the way 
Two big issues:
There's no simple off-the-shelf solution (available to the general public) for this (at least for now), some custom coding will definitely be required. There are a few apps that have facial recognition capability but they use them for silly social-media related things (Google Goggles, Recognizr). A company called Animetrics is working on it though.
Facial recognition doesn't work well with people with dark skin, which could be a serious problem with Trinidad's demographics.
So for now the only easy solution is those hyper-expensive dedicated units, and they may not work well on the average Trini.
If price is no object, here's some info on one of those hyper-expensive dedicated units. It also does a crapload of other security-related stuff (barcode reader, RFID reader, magstripe reader, GPS...the works).
http://usa.maxidcorp.com/pr/07may2009.php
I don't even know if this thing is for sale yet, this is bleeding-edge technology.
I am waiting on a response from my client on specific applications. Thanks for the info, guys (and gals!), it is appreciated. Gameboy is spot on about Trini's facial mix. They have some very interesting names there, too,considering it's English heritage. How about Shivanand Nandlal? Young engineer, took me a week to get the pronunciation down
There's an API for face.com.
Also if you want to dive deep into nerdery, OpenCV.
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