Apple acquires technology that uses facial recognition to read your emotions

Apple has acquired Emotient, a company using a facial-recognition technology that can read your emotions. This paves the way for the Cupertino giant to install the technology in its future iPhone cameras to read your emotions and determine when you're happy, said or just depressed.

Emotient calls itself "the leader in emotion detection and sentiment analysis based on facial expressions" and uses its technology to read expressions and emotions of people by analysing videos. The company often uses the technology to determine people's reactions to promotional videos and advertisements.

You will be able to make MasterCard payments through selfies soon!

Apple has so far not commented on why it went for the facial-recognition technology. It is possible that it may either use it in future iPhone cameras or may keep the technology stacked safely away among thousands of other innovations that it has either perfected or purchased over the years.

Yet another theory that may seem highly plausible is that Apple may need this technology to develop its own 'virtual reality' headset or on other devices that support the concept of augmented reality. This is backed up by the fact that Emotient was planning to develop a software for the Google Glass to allow shopkeepers to analyse reactions of their customers to new products.

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The only statement coming from Apple regarding the purchase was that it "buys smaller technology companies from time to time."

Facial recognition is an emerging tool which is increasingly being used as a biometric tool and as an alternative to passwords. Back in July, it was revealed that MasterCard was working on a new biometric technology named ID Check which would let you to make payments at stores just by clicking your selfie!

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"The credit card company won’t be able to re-create your face from the data on their servers, ensuring you keep the image of your face to yourself. People who are into selfies — and who isn’t these days? — may opt for ID Check instead of a password," said Ajay Bhalla, MasterCard’s president for enterprise safety and security.

The concept of facial recognition technology in smartphones was first introduced when Google launched the Android Ice Cream Sandwich back in 2011. The new OS came with a feature that allowed users to unlock their Android phones by using their faces as a biometric tool. However, the feature wasn't as foolproof as intended, as anyone could unlock a phone by simply showing a hi-res photo in bright light to the phone.

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