Screenshot/Fraunhofer Institute
The Shore Human Emotion Detector (SHORE), can detect basic emotions, someone's gender and predict how old you are in real time. The app was developed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits in Germany.
In an attempt to sidestep any privacy concerns surrounding the app, the developers have promised not send any images or data to the cloud. SHORE also prohibits you from being able to find out anyone's identity through it.
The app can gauge whether someone is angry, happy, sad or surprised. The product specifications on the official site say that the app has a 94.3% detection rate for the gender of the face you are looking at. The technology uses a database of more than 10,000 annotated faces as its reference point for identifying real ones. The Fraunhofer Institute told CNET last week that the software took "years" to develop.
Watch a demonstration of how SHORE technology works below.
SHORE has the potential to help people with sensory processing disorders such a face blindness recognize who they are speaking to. Another potential use is to help people with autism tell what emotion the person they are spending time with is projecting.
CNET speculated on why the app isn't available for download: "It's not clear if Fraunhofer has built it into a soon-to-be-available app, or if Fraunhofer is waiting to pair the tech with an app partner. Still, the SHORE app charts a less-traveled path through privacy concerns of facial recognition so that it can still be used to help people who need it."