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Sadly, the face.com API is being shut down due acquisition by Facebook.

Are there any decent alternatives out there?

I'm looking to check for a given image if there is a face in it + demographics content about it.

phwd
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Noam
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  • There is nothing to suggest this is happening... FB said it will be untouched ... saying that FB do have a history of buying and absorbing technologies then shutting down what they bought. My guess is if this happens it'll be absorbed into FB's API (eventually) but will probably mean you wont be able to use it outwith FB. – Brian Jul 07 '12 at 08:11
  • @Brian I thought the same way, but just got a mail from face.com saying differently. It's being shut down. – Noam Jul 07 '12 at 08:15
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    Ah ok ;) pitty. you can use OpenCV for the detection... but won't help for the rest of you're question. – Brian Jul 07 '12 at 09:15
  • hmm I see it also doesn't have a REST API :/ – Noam Jul 07 '12 at 09:33
  • yeh opencv is a custom you run it your self. it is great tho for any such image work - detecting objects etc :) – Brian Jul 07 '12 at 09:38

10 Answers10

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Sad news indeed. If you have a good reason and already have an account, they may extend you until October, 2012: http://developers.face.com/extension-request/

For everyone else, here's a list of potential alternatives I've compiled:

  1. OpenCV: http://opencv.willowgarage.com/ (C/C++ but at least its opensource, standalone and downloadable)
  2. Viewdle (Objective-C)... bought/axed by Google, instead see: Face Recognition on the iPhone
  3. Betaface API: http://www.betafaceapi.com/ (C#/.net or API)
  4. Rekognition: http://rekognition.com/ (API)
  5. Lambda Labs: http://lambdal.com/ (API; still in Private BETA)
  6. BiometryCloud: http://www.biometrycloud.com/ (API; as already mentioned Private BETA)
  7. Sky Biometry: http://www.skybiometry.com/

The following are similar but more on the Augmented Reality (AR) library side for detecting objects or movement with a webcam only, but with some extending could likely be trained to detect faces in snapshots or uploaded images as well:

  1. FaceAPI - Track Faces from a Webcam: http://faceapi.com
  2. SURF library - Image Recognition & Feature Extraction for Adobe Flash Platform: http://code.google.com/p/in-spirit/wiki/ASSURF
  3. Content Based Image Recognition - a stab in PHP: http://web.archive.org/web/20120309034643/http://www.searchlores.org/finn_cbir_1.htm
  4. A Not-so-slow JavaScript Face Detector: http://liuliu.me/ccv/js/nss/
  5. Face Detection in JavaScript via HTML5 Canvas: https://github.com/neave/face-detection

If anyone knows others, please feel free to add here to make this list as comprehensive as possible.

UPDATE (2013-08-20): Found this article the other day and thought I should add it here, though not sure how many projects listed there are still active: http://blog.mashape.com/post/53379410412/list-of-40-face-detection-recognition-apis

Community
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bcmoney
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13

SkyBiometry.com has a drop-in replacement. The API is available for free usage.

Aleksej
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6

There is also HP Lab's Multimedia Analytics Platform, also in beta.

kapa
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RSub
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  • It seems interesting, although examples seem to be returning errors at the moment. Were you able to see valid responses? – Noam Nov 11 '12 at 07:53
5

There is a Open Source Project called "openbr" which is built over opencv and Qt, that’s has got few good api's to be used. Pretty Easy to use from shell and has got adapters for IIRC python and java too

example from website for face recognition:

$ br -algorithm FaceRecognition -compare me.jpg you.jpg

Github:https://github.com/biometrics/openbr Website: http://openbiometrics.org/

Shashank Singh
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3

Another option for some face.com developers, although it may not provide exactly what you're looking for, Noam (in terms of demographics), is BioID's face recognition API.

Since BioID's technology was developed for authentication the API doesn't support all the features of face.com (age, gender, glasses, multiple face points, etc.), but can do things face.com couldn't (such as better recognition, image quality checks, fraud detection, and naturally authentication).

You can find a more detailed explanation of the differences at https://www.bioid.com/solutions/solutions-by-application/bioid-for-facedotcom.html

Tanya
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http://www.identitykit.it is a RESTful web service that offers face detection and face recognition functions. You can try a web demo in order to test their API at http://www.identitykit.it/index.php/demo/login

3

api.animetrics.com provides a pretty nice free face detection and facial recognition api. Their detectors don't provide demographics but they do include 20 or so feature points on the face, in addition to pitch, yaw, and roll. They will also generate a 3D "setpose" or mugshot image of an off-centered/rotated face.

casaram
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1

Another option is Kairos.com's API.

We have a RESTful API available that is under active development and provides the same functionality as the old face.com API.

You can sign up at developer.kairos.com.

Full disclosure I am CTO at Kairos.

coleca
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Please have a look at the videos we have at www.biometrycloud.com. I'm one of the founders and we've been working hard over the past year to provide a RESTFULL API that does facial recognition. First we focus on face recognition and verification. Now we are opening a private beta version of our API and will continue developing other features such as gender, age group, etc. if there's enough interest.

Roberto Rosenthal
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Here's a free trial with 75,000 API Calls http://cloudinary.com/documentation

Ricky Sahu
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