Sony's PlayStation Eye to gain facial recognition capabilities

It was almost two weeks ago that we first heard about the patent for Sony's PlayStation Eye-powered object motion detection, and now the company's announcing facial recognition for the console. According to Gamasutra, Kish Hirani, SCEE's Head of Developer Services, said that the facial recognition software would "detect gender and even the age of the face, separate facial features such as the nose, eyes and ears, and even detect whether you're smiling or not." This new gear will also work with the Sony Motion Controller, with the camera tracking X, Y and Z motion by using the glowing ball. Speaking at the Develop Conference in Brighton, Hirani stressed that companies won't need to develop their own tech to work with the new controllers. "If you are working with the PlayStation Eye and think there is some new tech you're going to have to develop for the motion controllers, just get in touch with us. We have a wealth of libraries available, and the chances are you won't have to develop any technology yourself." You hear that, guys? get to work!

[Via SlashGear]

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 18th 2009 8:03PM]

mmmk

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 18th 2009 9:19PM]

And what stops the government from accessing your camera's feed and seeing who and where you are?

[d889 Posted Jul 18th 2009 9:31PM]

maybe the same thing thats keep them from doing it now?

seriously .... is this a joke?


im not really stoked about the motion controlling for both consoles ... its going to be YEARS before we see anything worthwhile, and we will probably just get a bunch of kids games.

[Wwhat Posted Jul 19th 2009 4:55PM]

It's ALWAYS wise to get a lenscap for a camera, check history, plus it'll protect the lens.

[pokes Posted Jul 20th 2009 8:18AM]

The same thing that stops the lepricons and gremlins jumping up and down on your bed when you sleep.

[Wwhat Posted Jul 20th 2009 12:40PM]

The FBI publicly admitted that they changed the firmware of phones of suspects to enable them to turn on the microphone remotely, without giving indication it was doing that.
The president and dozens of officials admitted they spliced the damn AT&T phone backbone and snooped on more than half the US population.

But sure it's insane to think the government would EVER snoop on YOU, since you are special and all, madness, you must be insane to even think the government would ever do something bad or intrusive, ever.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 18th 2009 8:03PM]

I miss playstation. Once they change their controller, I'm going back.

[Steven Wozniak Posted Jul 18th 2009 8:10PM]

Or, you can stop being poor and just buy an XCM Cross Battle Adapter.

[Extinction Posted Jul 18th 2009 8:25PM]

You do know it accepts any USB HID compliant controller right?

You don't like Dualshock, buy something else. Unlike 360, it'll take them

[ClarkyAC Posted Jul 18th 2009 8:32PM]

wait.. if you once like playstation, and the controller has hardly even changed, why the hell do you only want to go back to playstation when they change the controller?

[ClarkyAC Posted Jul 18th 2009 8:33PM]

Plus third party controllers :p

[Temple Posted Jul 19th 2009 12:34AM]

Their controller is fine. Facial recognition is ubiquitous, Sony already has this in their point and shoot cameras, and they've been doing this stuff since EyeToy. Sony needs to concentrate on uniting core gamers with motion control.

[Extinction Posted Jul 18th 2009 8:25PM]

You got the story wrong. It already has this.

[Extinction Posted Jul 19th 2009 2:33AM]

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/07/16/sony-playstation-eye-can-recognize-faces-right-now/2#comments

[compwhiz Posted Jul 18th 2009 8:35PM]

Gender detection. Now how does that work... xD

[oneloveoneworld Posted Jul 18th 2009 8:38PM]

you have to be 15 ft away from it and naked to use the gender detection. :)

[AndyL Posted Jul 18th 2009 8:50PM]

I can't wait to see the look on peoples faces when their Playstation 3 thinks they are the opposite sex. And considering it is still a webcam, I'll be able to. hehe.

[Steve19970 Posted Jul 18th 2009 9:21PM]

@massive_98: If you hold up pictures of the Final Fantasy characters, do they all come up as girls?

[nigra Posted Jul 18th 2009 10:21PM]

pedobear will love this gender detection

[gadgeek Posted Jul 18th 2009 8:42PM]

"...the facial recognition software would detect gender..."

I'm kinda curious what the software would determine for this young lady:
http://www.doulike.com/photos/3277814.html

[The Punisher Posted Jul 18th 2009 8:52PM]

Natal still seems better. But I'll wait until they're both actually released to see how they stack up against each other. Seems like MS is putting more resources into Natal.

Kind of like how the Sixaxis motion control seemed tacked on when the PS3 launched.

[oGMo Posted Jul 18th 2009 9:13PM]

Natal is *complete* smoke and mirrors, though. It doesn't do anything particularly cool: the Milo demo was staged (not even staged live), and the rest is fairly simple shape recognition. (It's not particularly difficult to take an image of something you already know looks like a given shape, then match points to it.)

If you watch the actual live demos of people playing it, you'll notice it has a fair amount of lag, too. Maybe they'll solve that, but I wouldn't give them the benefit of the doubt, especially since it was acknowledged with no announced plan to improve.

The Eyetoy stuff on the other hand had live demos with zero lag that demonstrate *exactly* the extent of what it can do. Hold a thing, position a thing, pull a trigger. No magical claims of AI children living in a box.

Of course, whether either one will amount to anything remains to be seen. I'm highly skeptical of the motion control thing, if for no other reason than *nothing* revolutionary or groundbreaking has happened yet, and it's been out in various forms (wiimote, sixaxis, various PC controllers) for years now. Maybe it will.

But do a mental exercise: imagine you had as much computing power (3D, physics, but nothing magical) and storage (disc, graphics, level data, etc) as you want, with the most talented team in the world at your disposal (they can make any graphics, music, and sound you want, and you have the best writers who will come up with an excellent rendition of any storyline, characters, and setting you want). You can do absolutely anything, and it will be excellent. How would a motion controller help revolutionize your idea?

[The Punisher Posted Jul 18th 2009 9:14PM]

Your whole comment is Bullshit because Natal was actually PLAYABLE @ E3 unlike Sony's motion controller. It was even played live on Jimmy Fallon show. Go back and crawl under the bridge you came from Troll!

[The Punisher Posted Jul 18th 2009 9:33PM]

@ oGMo

http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/03/project-natal-video-hands-on-impressions-and-further-details/

Engadget actually got to use the tech and they were pretty impressed with it.

"The body tracking is truly impressive....."

"As soon as we stepped into line in front of the box, the avatar immediately took on our stance and movements. And we mean really took them on -- little gestures with our arms, the posture we had, front and back movements -- it tracked with complete accuracy. We did notice a bit of stutter during some finer movements, but overall the effect was impressive (and more than a little eerie)."

"The effect was nothing short of amazing --"

"Obviously, Microsoft is still working out kinks and perfecting this thing, but what we saw at our demo (and super-secret demo) was mighty convincing."

Read it and weep troll.

[gadgeek Posted Jul 18th 2009 9:35PM]

did you know oGMo is blind?!

don't be offensive and show some respect

* Picture Me (eyes) Rollin' *

[jon Posted Jul 18th 2009 9:51PM]

@oG

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douche.

[darkquota Posted Jul 19th 2009 1:17AM]

@ Caveman and others,

He's talking about demos of the Eye toy a long, long time ago. You're thinking he's talking about the pseye plus motion wand technology, but he's not. Just youtube eye toy demos and you'll see some of the things oGMo is talking about. I really don't think oGMo was trying to be a troll either. Also, I think he was talking about the Milo demo as not being shown rather than demos in general.

As to my opinions on the PSeye motion wands, Project Natal, and Wii Motion Plus, it's going to take a lot of software innovation to make something that is fun, while still having the depth of a regular controller-based game. I don't see that happening anytime this generation, but there will be steps made by all three of the console manufacturers in order to lead to the software innovation. For that, all we can hope is it will happen sooner rather than later.

[The Punisher Posted Jul 19th 2009 1:29AM]

@ Catfish

You need some reading comprehension skills. The first thing he wrote was Natal is "complete smoke & mirrors". It's not the first time he has said this either.

And no where did he mention the Eye toy from a long, long time ago. He's talking about Sony's Motion Controller. Did you even bother to read what he wrote?

" Hold a thing, position a thing, pull a trigger. No magical claims of AI children living in a box."

Like I said, he's said this before, he's just trolling. The proof is in the Engadget impression I linked to earlier.

It is going to take a lot of software innovation and that's where MS shines at. MS is heavily investing in this technology. The Eyetoy has been an experiment for long time for Sony and hardly anything has come to fruition. This press release is Sony just saying, "Hey look, we can do that too."

[darkquota Posted Jul 19th 2009 2:20AM]

Yeah, and there is a difference between the eye toy and the playstation eye. If he meant the playstation eye, I apologize, but if you search youtube for old eye toy tech demos, you'll see it's very similar to the Project Natal.

Also, I agree that MS is great with software innovation, but I think Nintendo is going to be the one who nails the experience everyone is hoping first.

And yes, he was wrong for saying that Natal is all smoke and mirrors (heck, the processing is done inside the box itself as compared to the PSeye Motion Wands needing the PS3 to use it's CPU to process the info).

Looking back on it, it doesn't really matter who had the idea first anyway (referring to me actually caring that the Eye Toy had some of the ideas Natal had a long time ago). What matters is who utilizes the idea to it's fullest and so far Sony hasn't done anything spectacular with either the Eye Toy or the PSeye compared to Nintendo's Wii and it's motion-controller.

Like I said earlier though, I doubt this generation will see the greatness of motion controlled games (and yes I know what you're thinking, "This is an article about camera-specific motion controls" and you are right, I'm just looking at motion controls in general).

Also, this isn't meant to offend you at all, I was/am just offering my opinion and I respect yours as well even though I have a feeling you don't respect mine as much lol. No hard feelings though.

[Mushrooshi Posted Jul 18th 2009 8:59PM]

Remember when Wii fit was sued by the woman who said it called her kids fat? Well, what happen when it calls a 25 year old woman 50?

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 18th 2009 9:32PM]

There will probably be some user agreement so those greedy assholes can't do that. But you never know, they'll probably find a way.

[thefjk Posted Jul 18th 2009 9:27PM]

'Firmware Updates'

This shouldn't come as a surprise since hardware just provides the data and what not... software can use that data in millions of ways man. So the way I see it, adding facial recognition and all that other jazz was as easy as copying some libs over to the camera's driver or something!

Basic s**t, nothing to it, shouldn't even have been announced!

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 18th 2009 10:21PM]

I thought this was done a while ago. I remember seeing demos for the Playstation eye that had a game where there were 2 lady detectives and you used your voice and face to tell them what to do, like NO TURN left and they would know if you were upset with them. I cant find that demo Anywhere anymore and what happen to the virtual pet thing they had? Where
MUCH LIKE NATAL you could draw something and the pet would interact with it.

I know that Ibm was working for both sony and Microsoft in development of chip, would it be so far flung to say that microsoft has been doing similar things with the playstation eye? Only taking it further and actually producing working showable demos.

Im just sick of "unfinished games" where im offer the oppertunity to spend an extra 20 to get a new level here or there, and games that offer no fun.

I don't a fancy interactive controller that's all gimmick.

I like the wii becasue hey its a mouse on the screen, that makes sense in computer entertainment. And natal is nifty.

I don't want games that i have to play full time, or games that there is no end to.


I miss arcades. Someone make a networkable mame platform that can run a full arcade game server and bring back the arcades to places. Something like itunes that has so many licenses , make it legit, dedicate a serious of machines, and track it, and profit.

[DBG Posted Jul 18th 2009 10:49PM]

Yeah I loved that demo, it made me want to buy the game itself, which has yet to be produced for public consumption. I think it had an "I" or "eye" in the name, but I can't seem to find it on IGN with that info alone.

[DBG Posted Jul 18th 2009 10:54PM]

In Japan some arcade machines are networked with other machines across the county. We used to have the same technology, heh I remember reading a spec sheet that said it required a dedicated T1 line, which is nothing in today's bandwidth usage. But yeah we actually had the technology to network games, but the fad died out. As far as network MAME'd machines, you would never get publishers to go along with this, although there is some open-source technology (again, some that is not in use anymore and some that is but not very popular) that you would like. You might want to check out 3D Arcade (I believe that is the name), if it doesn't pop up in Google add "mame" to the query.

[DBG Posted Jul 18th 2009 10:56PM]

Ah here it is - http://ps3.ign.com/dor/objects/748484/eyedentify-voice-recognition-game/videos/eyedentify_080805.html - damn this game still looks fun.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 18th 2009 11:29PM]

oGMo that was very well said. It is very true. Natal was very playable its just there was a noticeable amount lag with that system that seemed to cause those people playing the games to do poorly. Microsoft said nothing about improving it either. I don't know about you people, but I would hate to have to play any game without some physical controls. It's just not right. You have to have some sort of control over the game physically with no lag to do well. I found Sony's motion controlling to be very practical and real. Sony is using technology they already have (PS3 Eye) and improving on it. With Sony's demo they showed us live video of the motion controllers doing very cool things (Bow, sword and shield, ect...), and with no lag.
However both the technologies are not out yet so there is no true test to see how well they are. I am just saying, after watching the three companies new technologies I would have to say: #1 PS3 Motion Controller, #2 Wii Motion Plus, #3 XboX Natal.......for now.......

[looselycoupled Posted Jul 19th 2009 3:27AM]

I don't know if that camera thing is any good, but with all the processing power on tap in the PS3, they should be able to do all kinds of crazy augmented reality stuff...

[stalemate Posted Jul 19th 2009 4:47AM]

nintendo virtual boy?

[CXK Posted Jul 19th 2009 3:00PM]

I hope it can recognize sad faces.

[Wwhat Posted Jul 19th 2009 5:00PM]

Maybe for computer/console use it should recognise the raised eyebrow and ironic look sooner than smiles.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 19th 2009 7:41PM]

LMAO?

[JackBus Posted Jul 23rd 2009 5:34AM]

Wave To Text - powerful English speech recognition software

A useful English speech recognition software 'Wave To Text v5.2'. Help you convert your voice to text in real-time, while the program's wizard enables you to convert your Windows Audio WAV files (speech recorded) offline.

http://www.111download.com/product/wave-to-text-v.html