There is a very pronounced interest in the world of computing to improve the recognition ability of current algorithms. Image processing is a particularly appreciated resource, and on some occasions it is put to the test with more than interesting ideas. On this occasion we came across How-Old.net, a portal developed by Microsoft where anyone can upload a photo and wait for the system to “guess” our age.
The story of How-Old.net begins with Microsoft's need to evaluate its new APIs for face recognition. As we already know, this is part of the Windows Hello biometric security feature in Windows 10, which will also allow users to access their systems with fingerprint reading and even iris recognition. The evaluation process included sending invitations to hundreds of people, hoping that at least fifty would participate. Three hours later, more than 35,000 people had visited the page. At first, the news spread very quickly in Turkey, and almost 29,000 visitors were from there. Social networks did the rest of the work.
Behind the Scenes
The official announcement of How-Old.net explains in large part the technical details behind the site. Only a small group of developers was needed to connect the APIs with machine learning resources on Microsoft Azure. The process is divided into three parts: extract the gender and estimated age of the person in the photo, obtain additional information from those preliminary data, and generate a dashboard that serves as a presentation of the results. From what we have been able to appreciate through the comments, the overall level of accuracy is quite good, although in my personal case it was wrong by more than a decade. I know I'm ruined, but I'm not 46 years old.
Privacy and Availability
We have no idea how long How-Old.net will remain online, so if you want to try it, this is a good time. The privacy details are reduced to a single fact: Microsoft does not keep the photo. The only way that can happen is with the user's prior consent, and unless you've taken a very good photo that the rest of the world should see (?), I don't think anyone will do that...
