We’ve been secretly working on “Project Badass” (not really its name) for months now and last week was the culmination of many sleepless nights, a massive quantity of spousal understanding and at least 3 crying fits (but really manly crying fits, like those of a conquering hero).  Introducing KLIK – a real-time mobile face recognition application.

KLIK is Face.com’s new real-time mobile face recognition camera application.  Just download the app here, connect it to Facebook, Twitter or both and voila!  You’ll be recognizing friends with your mobile phone in no time (and in real time too).  It’s magic – and we don’t use that word lightly.  Share photos on KLIK, Facebook, Twittter, and with friends.  If you don’t like it, we’ll give you double your money back.  Did I mention it’s free? Common responses we received at the party were “woah!”, “Holy crap!”, and “I love it, but it still needs some work.” We’re still in the initial stages of development but wanted to share it with friends, get your feedback and continue to improve.  If KLIK doesn’t recognize a face – snap a photo, tap “Tag Me” over unrecognized faces to pick a name, and then save the photo (no need to share). The more photos you save, the better KLIK gets.

To celebrate our hard work, the entire Face.com team flew to San Francisco to live it up. About 120 people gathered at the amazing Clift Hotel Spanish Suite to party with the beautiful people (hey, we had to make up for our ugly mugs), an amazing live band, food, copious amounts of liquor, a KLIK themed drink called a ‘KLIKtail’, demo stations and all kinds of cool schwag to toast the birth of KLIK.  If you didn’t attend, we totally invited you and you should check your spam folder.

Some party pics and pictures from the KLIK app are below including CEO Gil Hirsch getting jiggy with feedbomb – the best Silicon Valley cover band there ever was.  Much fun was had by all.  Thank you to our team for working so tirelessly, our friends for attending and showing us the love, and finally all our users and developers who have given us valuable feedback and support.  We look forward to continuing the work to make KLIK even better and welcome your honest feedback.

Our good friends at Apigee have a pretty stellar API collection designed to be a great place for developers to find and explore new APIs.  On December 27, Apigee launched a holiday “gift” to their users by assembling a collection of some of their favorite cutting-edge geeky API Consoles. Much to our delight, they included Face.com. Check it out here: https://apigee.com/console/facecom

Apigee makes it easy to learn, test and explore APIs by letting you request/response pairs, get past authentication quickly and share screen shots.   We love it.  Thanks to all the hard working people at Apigee for burning the midnight oil over the holidays.  We know our developers love easy – thanks for making it even easier.

Thanks,

The Face Team

People all over the world are using Face.com’s API for new, different and amazing things.  So amazing in fact that we’d like to share some of them with you.  Let me just take off my jacket, put on my comfy blue sweater and change into sneakers.  OK, ready to share…but this isn’t make-believe:

The News360 App - There are now so many news outlets, news aggregators and blogs that it’s tough to know what to prioritize and read first (besides the face.com blog of course).  News360 is the solution.  As TechCrunch recently said, “News360 is a news reading application with semantic underpinnings that uses smart algorithms to personalize your news reading experience. Upon installation, you connect your Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Google Reader and now, Google+, accounts to the service, which helps it determine what sort of things you would find interesting.”  News360 collects images from more than 1,500 online news sources, and then intelligently crops the photos to fit the different devices displaying the app – otherwise faces in the photos would be cut off.  This solves a huge problem because cropping portraits to a specific size is necessary but tedious work. Face.com allowed them to very easily solve this issue.

 FareClock - During High School, this app would have been my nightmare, but my boss’ dream come true.  No more having your buddy do a solid for you.  Your boy can’t punch you in so that you’re on the clock. Those glorious days are over!  FareClock uses Face.com’s face recognition software to verify that is in fact you and you’re present, ready to work.  I’m sure Fred Flintstone would have appreciated it.  The alternative left him sticking his timecard into a dinosaur’s mouth.  Congrats FareClock.  Employers everywhere are saluting you.

MA7 Mashup Awards – No, it’s not cherry blossom season…it’s Fall so that means it’s…hackathon season!  MA7 is Japan’s #1 Hackathon with a grand prize of
1,000,000 Yen.  That’s like…a whole lotta Yen. The contest started in September and winners will be announced on December 11th.  Currently using the Face.com API, is a very cool little app called HairReco.  It’s a web service that proposes various hairstyles for you.  Simple. Why this doesn’t already exist, we have no idea.  It could have saved millions of women from severe, post haircut trauma.  Lives could have been saved. We love the app and will be sending you some very chic Face.com t-shirts very soon. Good luck in the competition!

That’s it for now.  Thanks to all the developers who spent countless nights awake in their office and many sunny days shut in and closed off to the world.  The sacrifice was well worth it.  Keep ‘em coming.  We can’t wait to see what else you have in store.  OK, now to put on that jacket and loafers…back to work.

The Face Team

Ever wonder how you’d look as a funhouse mirror freak of nature?  Well, now you can give your paranoid schizophrenic delusions a test run with GooTube.  Try on a face or two without having to raid your girlfriend’s makeup…or undergo plastic surgery for the sheer fun of it .

Choose from many disturbing, truly vile and crazy funhouse mirror faces.  Be the freak show you know you are.  Share the results on Facebook and make your friends sorry they ever friended you in the first place.

We love the app and can’t stop futzing around with the many crazy, maniacal, disfigured and generally zombie-like faces. Kudos to Tomek (aka Og2t) for developing such a fun Halloween app.  You definitely earned your Face.com t-shirt.  Try not to get blood on it.

Our API is free to all up to 5,000 photos per hour.  Let us know how we can help you in your quest to build new, innovative and sometimes wickedly scary apps.

Happy Halloween!!!

We’re  back from WIRED UK 2011 – cheerio, pip pip, tea, crumpets, and all that rot.

The two-day conference in London was billed as a celebration of ideas, innovations and the people reshaping our world and there’s no question it fit that bill.  The speakers in attendance provided brain food for personal development on a range of topics, from science and business to pop culture and politics. Of course, the highlight of the whole conference (from totally unbiased sources – like us) was Face.com CEO Gil Hirsch presenting on the power of face recognition, complete with a demonstration of something really cool that you’ll be hearing a lot more about in the near future – real time mobile face recognition.

Face.com was invited to speak on the general topic of the ‘Social Future’,  but our focus was to convey the power of face recognition in our lives and the possibilites and opportunities that exist in a more transparent world.  We were honored to attend and thank the organizers at WIRED for all their support.  As has been so often quoted in recent days and again at WIRED, “Here’s to the crazy ones.” We couldn’t agree more.

Many thanks to everyone working behind the scenes who made WIRED 2011 and our real time mobile face recognition demonstration possible.  Pictures of our visit to foggy London town below.

Calling all Hackers at the weekend’s TC Disrupt Hackathon SF: 

Face.com is here presenting helping you code using our API.  We’re even giving out an iPad2 for best use of our API! Come check out our presentation at 5:30pm.  Also, just let us know you’re hacking for TC and we’ll provide you with unlimited calls.  Check out our developer page to find out more info on using the Face.com API, and contact us with the email you used to sign up if you need to unlimit your account.

TechCrunch had this to say about this weekend’s Hackathon:

“The fourth annual TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon is just around the corner! Spend an intense 24 hours hacking, learning and presenting with the Bay Area’s finest developers.On Sunday morning, you’ll have a chance to demo your hack in front of hundreds of audience members. Our group of select judges will choose several teams to present their hacks on Wednesday in the Hackathon Highlights from 2:30pm – 4pm.”

Look for us and maybe we’ll even give you a shiny new extra special Face.com sticker…or a t-shirt.  You’re worth it.

What a weekend!  PhotoHackDay was an amazing success with over 370 registered attendees and 42 hack submissions.  Of those, at least 1/3 were using the Face.com API.  We placed strong and celebrated afterward with an After-Hack Party @ SPiN.   Check out the Winners, Demo’s and Party:

Winners:

1st Place – Photobot (used Face.com API) – Won $5K and will be featured on the Nasdaq Times Square electronic billboard.

2nd Place – HoneyBadger (used Face.com API) – Won $2,500

3rd Place – Nostalgia – Won $1,000

People’s Choice – HoneyBadger – Won $1,500

Demo’s

Here’s a long, but amazing list of all the submissions using the Face.com API.  Here we go:

PhotoBot  – A photo quality suggestion engine.  Simply take a photo and their Photobot tells you how your photo can be better.  Suggestions often include:  Take photo from a different angle, over exposure, subject not smiling, and many more.

HoneyBadger – “A robust, motion detector security system for your computer.”  It enables your computer to know who’s looking at the screen.  If it’s not the primary user, sends out a text alerting the owner.

Emotional Breakdown - Shows the emotional state of the world by analyzing emotions of people in news stories.

Facialytics -  Get the emotion of a crowd by using our API to get the reaction of an audience.   Track audience reaction over time.   Perfect for movie screenings and tv pilots.

HappyMug -  Get pictures of your friends all smiling – put it on cool items…like a mug.  Wake up to all your friends smiling at you. ”Like a party in your cupboard!”

Stash Your ‘Stache – They firmly believe that every man with a mustache would look better without it.  StashYourStache shaves it off for you.

Moodify -  App takes picture of your face and determines your mood.  Then (based on your mood) Moodify suggests a list of songs you should listen to on Spotify.

Friendpocalypse - Uses Face.com and Facebook to turn pics of your friends into zombies.  Then you can kill them.  “Unfriend the undead.”

Underwear-Model-ify Yourself via MMS - Text photos to (917) 678-7382. You’re sexier than you know it.  Just wait for the response.

Instagirl - iOS app creating a stream of non-stop hot girls. Simple…Brilliant.

Photobombr - Turn your photo into a meme. Photobomb some peeps! Just tweet your photo and include #photobombr. Look for reply.

TrueLookALikes - Which of your Facebook friends look like which TrueBlood characters? Find out!

(Sorry! No video yet…)

Beard me - They love facial hair, and believe that you should too. Try out different styles, share with friends and get their feedback.  Start now by showing your beardless mug.

Party!

After a hugely successful Demo Day, Face.com continued the party at SPiN Galactic on 48 E 23rd Street.  Much beer was drank and ping pong played.  Pics on our FB Page!

Hi from PhotoHackDay NYC!  The turnout is ridiculous and dozens of developers are hard at work creating applications using the Face.com API.  Grand Prize winner of the event gets their app featured on NASDAQ.  Best use of our API gets an iPad2.

Here are some pics from the event:

CEO Gil Hirsch leading a packed API Workshop

Morning Session

Hackin’

In New York, there’s nothing you can’t do.  Your app featured on NASDAQ in Times Square will inspire you.

Face.com is right in the middle of this weekend’s PhotoHackDay NYC.  We’re jetting in, sponsoring (aka making it rain), presenting, holding an API workshop and giving a prize for best use of our API. Plus…winner of the best application will get featured in Times Square on the NASDAQ electronic billboard.  I know…holy free, amazing publicity Batman! Sign up while you still can!

We’re pretty damn excited and you should be too. We’ve demanded asked our staff to be on call for the occasion so they will be providing real-time support. Here’s how you can get our attention:

• Ask a question in our developer forum: http://developers.face.com/forums/
• Email us at support@face.com
• IRC #face.com on freenode
• We’ll be there so you can also just walk up to us and politely ask for help. Depending on how much beer we’ve had, we can probably help out. No guarantees though.

We’re proud to be supporting Aviary and PhotoHackDay.  Watching the magic happen always gives us satisfaction.  See you in Midtown…

Face.com is coast-to-coast this weekend, sponsoring hackathons in NYC & SF.

Starting tonight at 6pm EST, Startup Weekend NYC focuses on building web and mobile applications and brings together developers, UX/UI designers and business folk all with the goal of building apps with a commercial use case. No one’s discounting hacking for hacking’s sake, but these guys are serious. They’re hoping to create applications that have legs, commercial legs. Completed apps will be shown at Sunday’s Demo Day.  Don’t worry, tickets are still available.

The San Francisco HAPI hackathon kicks off tomorrow at 10am. HAPI Hack Weekend is a hackathon focused on leveraging APIs to create cool new software. Naturally, we had to sponsor because a) we have an API and b) we empower the creation of new and cool.

We’re here to help all developers and have set up IRC channel #face.com on freenode to provide real-time support.  Since our team is in Israel, here are our real-time support hours:

You can always email us at support@face.com.  I’m sure one of our insomnia and caffeine ridden professionals will get back to you shortly. Good luck and ping us with any* questions or comments.

*Criticism will be met with hostility and general mockery.