While Microsoft didn’t reel off quite as many announcements as it did for its first keynote of the company’s Build conference in San Francisco, it did display a set of new machine-learning APIs.
Corporate vice president Joseph Sirosh encouraged everyone to test out its new face recognition tool how-old.net, but even he might have been surprised by how enthusiastically people took him up on the suggestion.
The site offers people the chance to upload photos of faces and then automatically assesses the age of the person (or people’s) in the picture.
It took Twitter by storm as people’s curiosity got the better of them, and everyone began uploading pictures. Those with slightly sensitive dispositions weren’t exactly pleased about the results. We’ve gathered some of the best tweets below.
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While the site quickly went viral, the demo in itself demonstrated some of the new developer services that Microsoft has been using in Project Oxford an evolving portfolio of REST APIs and SDK that aim to help developers build intelligent apps. Those on display allowed developers to add facial recognition to their apps the tool then try and work out the age, passing on the information to developers.
Other tools will include speech recognition, and reportedly, eventually be able to help develops understand the intent of users too. Microsoft also had a vision API for categorising and automatic image crops that always moved the subject into the centre.
Twitter users though, were more concerned with what fateful news how-old.net was delivering to them.
I can’t stop laughing ud83dude02 Curse you app! #howolddoilook #HowOldRobot pic.twitter.com/rZLmDII2gB
” Christine Brecht (@stinestinks) May 1, 2015
It’s my last day of being 25. Emotional day. The #HowOldRobot thinks I’m 29 though ud83dudca9 pic.twitter.com/H2ZtHMYFSn
” FVC (@florencevc) May 1, 2015
.#HowOldRobot has added another 11 years onto my face, christ what will I look like at 30 pic.twitter.com/Ii12Z30YEo
” Callum Delhoy (@CallumDelhoy) May 1, 2015
Some even took to innovative approaches to appear more youthful
Want to look younger A Goldilocks wig works nicely, as @Mike_Fabricant shows http://t.co/vz3OvBT1WU #HowOldRobot pic.twitter.com/dgT9hfUvi5
” Asa Bennett (@asabenn) May 1, 2015
And who could resist the opportunity to make fun of poor Microsoft
Sorry, @MSEdgeDev, but somebody had to be the one to do it. #HowOldRobot pic.twitter.com/2bflsgZYB4
” Adrian Roselli (@aardrian) April 30, 2015
Others of course, took the opportunity to really give the system a thorough test
End soon, it must. Yes, hmmm. #HowOldRobot pic.twitter.com/r6qVteNKjr
” Alexander Svensson (@wortfeld) May 1, 2015
So it turns out Gollum is female and 89 years old #HowOldRobot pic.twitter.com/k30KRqLmuH
” Julia Schumacher (@MsJuliaS) May 1, 2015
Don’t think you’ve got David Cameron’s age right there #HowOldRobot http://t.co/bi3hZyTizB pic.twitter.com/x0Yrf5aBj2
” Asa Bennett (@asabenn) May 1, 2015
HA! Wrong. #HowOldRobot #BenjaminButton pic.twitter.com/qRMOZgbIZP
” Heydon (@heydonworks) May 1, 2015
Algorithm issues on Gandalf. Should be 11,000+ but Magneto is good #HowOldRobot pic.twitter.com/UeYPy0jtoy
” [adult swim] (@adultswim) April 30, 2015
Proof the Dark Side is terrible for your health. #HowOldRobot #StarWars pic.twitter.com/e0ulSbmNPW
” Matthew Jones (@mjonesy_87) May 1, 2015
Well played, #HowOldRobot pic.twitter.com/jDBPkV3HIL
” Samuel_IGN (@Samuel_IGN) April 30, 2015
And a few just didn’t seem to be getting any recognition for their efforts…
Well that’s just rude……#HowOldRobot pic.twitter.com/ebf9zn1dgd
” Bandai Namco UK (@BandaiNamcoUK) May 1, 2015
But pancakes are people too #HowOldRobot pic.twitter.com/ahetBtQtEa
” IHOP (@IHOP) April 30, 2015
Though, a few concerns were raised about privacy too:
Seriously @Microsoft no terms of service or #privacy and data policy whatsoever on this thing #HowOldRobot pic.twitter.com/E2jHcZVV20
” Antonio A. Casilli (@AntonioCasilli) May 1, 2015
