Face
| Industry | Technology |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2009 |
| Headquarters | , Israel  |
Face(Hebrew:פייס.קום) was anIsraelitechnology company that developed a platform for efficient and accuratefacial recognitionin photos uploaded via web and mobile applications. FaceappsandAPIservices scanned billions of photos monthly andtaggedfaces in those photos, tying them to social networking information. As of February 2011, the company had "discovered" 18 billion faces across its API and Facebook applications.[1]
The company was established in 2009 inTel Aviv,and maintained an office with 10 employees. Face developed and released two Facebook applications: Photo Finder and Photo Tagger. Photo Finder allowed users to find untagged pictures of themselves as well as friends on Facebook and then tag those photos. Photo Tagger enabled bulk-tagging of faces that appear in multiple photos uploaded to the Facebook website. On June 18, 2012, the company announced that it had been acquired byFacebook.It was also announced that they were winding up their API's to focus on new Facebook products.
REST API Program
[edit]In March 2010, Face opened an Alpha of their freeRESTAPI,[2]allowing third-party developers to integrate the Face facial recognition technology, algorithms, and database of tagged faces with their own apps and services. The REST API gave developers free access to all of the platform's technology, with some applicable rate limits, while also offering white listing and premium licensing options. With the API, developers could tag and recognize users from Facebook and Twitter, attach Face technology to their own index of images, or even mix and match facial recognition across photo sources, including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Picasa, and more.[2]
In February 2011, Face 's API program moved from Alpha to Beta, increasing the rate limit from 200 scanned photos per hour to 5,000 photos per hour.[3]As of February 10, more than 10,000 developers were using the Face API.[1]
Funding
[edit]Face raised a total of $5.3 million in funding for their face recognition technology. ASeries Around, totaling $1 million, was raised in February 2009. On September 27, 2010, the company announced that it had closed a Series B round of $4.3 million, led by previous investor Rhodium and Russia-based investorYandex.On June 18, 2012, the company was acquired byFacebookfor an undisclosed sum estimated to be between $55 and $60 million.[4]
University of Massachusetts study
[edit]In 2011, a study conducted at theUniversity of Massachusetts Amherstcompared a portion of the Facealgorithm,and found it to have a recognition rate of 0.91.[5]
Update
[edit]As of June 2012 Face was sold to Facebook. The Technology is continued under the projectDeepFace. As of December 2015 the domain Face was sold to an e-commerce company.
References
[edit]- ^ab"Face 's API Now Lets Developers Scan 5,000 Photos Per Hour, Free Of Charge".TechCrunch.
- ^ab"Face Opens Free Facial Recognition API".Programmable Web.
- ^"Face: Free Face Recognition API for Photos".Programmable Web.
- ^"Facebook Scoops Up Face For $55-60M To Bolster Its Facial Recognition Tech".
- ^"Labeled Faces in the Wild".University of Massachusetts.