Apple Reportedly Purchases Face Recognition Company Polar Rose [Updated]
Company CEO Carl Silbersky would today not comment on the affair.
"I do not know what this is about," he says, and would otherwise not give any comments.
The same information comes from the company's Chief Technology Officer Jan Erik Solem. Other sources close to the Polar Rose, however, confirms that the deal is, if not completely, at least in the final stage. News Service Rapidus claims to have gotten over the board meeting from the beginning of the month in which it appears that Apple is now the sole owner of the company.
One example of Polar Rose's FaceLib technology is the Recognizr concept for "augumented ID" of which the company has been a co-developer. A video demonstrating the concept is available on YouTube.
Late last month, Polar Rose announced that it was shutting down its consumer-focused Flickr and Facebook tagging product, and followed that up by announcing just a week later that it would be shutting down its entire free face-tagging service. At the time, the company claimed that it was unable to keep up with customer service requests and needed to focus its efforts on its face recognition technology. It now appears that that decision was likely motivated by Apple's pending acquisition of the company.
Apple has utilized face recognition technology for several years in its iPhoto application, but its apparent acquisition of Polar Rose signals an expanded interest in using it for mobile and/or video applications.
Just last week, we discovered that Apple had acquired UK-based IM-Sense Ltd for its "eye-fidelity" technology related to color correction in images, particular for HDR photos such as those employed in Apple's new iOS 4.1.
Update: Citing "rock-solid sources", TechCrunch claims that Apple paid $29 million for Polar Rose.
Top Rated Comments
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I wouldn't be surprised in the near term that other augmented reality app developers won't be brought up by apple or google such as layar to be integrated in either companies hardware/software.
Both companies seem to keen to 'own' as much information of the central starting point of any social network which is 'us' and our data fingerprint - and what is more unique than our faces
ps anyone know of a good plastic surgeon?
Not game changing but certainly useful
I dunno, I could see this being quite useful, for example face recognition as an unlock rather than using a password on an iPhone/Mac, or perhaps face recognition to switch between users?
Not game changing but certainly useful
Agree. I hardly think they bought them for social networking etc, but good face recognizing and the technology behind it can be useful in many ways.
I dunno, I could see this being quite useful, for example face recognition as an unlock rather than using a password on an iPhone/Mac, or perhaps face recognition to switch between users?
Not game changing but certainly useful
Certainly useful, and perhaps revenue input form licensing?
Polar Rose's solution is already ported to iOS and has great performance and accuracy.
Using face print to unlock iphone
Recognizing voice commands better by reading lips AND voice.
Perhaps apple would make a social network called "Faces" where your iphone recognizes people through pictures and gives you there facebook and name if they signed up for the service. Probably a very bad privacy thing but a lot of people would sign up for it.
I dunno, I could see this being quite useful, for example face recognition as an unlock rather than using a password on an iPhone/Mac, or perhaps face recognition to switch between users?
Not game changing but certainly useful
Yeah but that has a flaw because someone can just take a picture of you, print it out, then BAM! instant access. I think it should be used in combination with voice prints. But then someone can just record your voice the play it back...sigh..:(
I think face recognition shouldn't be used alone as a key to unlocking services.
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