Smartphones are used for more and more things thanks to the great versatility offered by their components and the applications with which they are used. Photography is one of the fields that has progressed the most in this direction, today it is even possible to change the faces of your friends so that everyone looks good.
One of the next big advances in this direction could be for the mobile phone camera itself to be able to track users’ health status. This technology is already in the development phase and could arrive as early as 2024, although there is no confirmed date for this.
The Japanese company NEC revealed information about this face monitoring system. It would be able to detect the first signs of possible health problems thanks to the front camera of the mobile to carry out a visual analysis which would take no more than a minute.
Detect facial changes
Certain technological devices such as connected watches, smart rings, activity bracelets or mobile phones have great potential to offer the measurement of certain types of user health data. To date, everything useful beings They incorporate the possibility of measuring the heart rate, or even the oxygen in the blood of the people who wear them, which allows them to be more aware of their own health. In the past, we have already seen smartphones equipped with pulse sensors, but The next step in your measurement skills could go beyond this dataand without the need for an external device.
This would be thanks to the facial and facial parts monitoring system that NEC presented. This could help detect the first signs of abnormal health. You would only need the device’s front camera, which you would use to perform a combined analysis of eye movement and pupil response, two involuntary reactions of the eye muscles. Among the variables that the company claims to be able to accurately measure are breathing and blood oxygen levels, and even pulse, simply by looking at the face of the user in question.
Face and facial part monitoring system
Free Android
These scans would not take much time for the user, as they would only take 10 to 60 seconds. In addition, the entire process would be carried out in a completely secure manner, guaranteeing user privacy through the use of biometric authentication to perform certain actions within the application. After completing the whole process, the user will first see an indicator whether everything is going well or if there are signs why the system thinks he should go to the doctor. After this first indicator, quite clear, we could also see the analysis of the different variables, displayed in the form of graphs in the purest style of smart watch and bracelet applications.
Project in development
The company’s own page states that the design and functions of this software are subject to possible changes, as it is still in development. Among the possible problems of this software is how to handle possible differences between the cameras of different cell phones and how this could affect the recognition of the algorithm. Certainly, a requirement of this software may be to have a certain minimum resolution, as well as sufficient lighting to be able to properly examine each person’s face.
NEC Face Tracking
Free Android
This type of software responds to users’ growing interest in their health, and the mobile phone, a device that virtually everyone uses, can be a great way to make these measurements more accessible. Although, still, if it does not have the reliability of a medical device, it must be taken into account that these are indicative data and do not replace the measurement that a doctor can make of these variables.
The launch date for this solution, according to the NEC itself, would be sometime in 2024 or perhaps even later, precisely because it is still in its early stages. We will therefore have to wait and see if this technology ends up materializing with sufficient reliability. It also remains to be seen how the company materializes this software and how it can turn it into a profitable project, since it is not clear whether it could become an application, or rather an addition that some companies integrate natively into their smartphones.
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