Like the “replay” example above, involving the construction workers and the woman, real time playback and incorporation of these digital images into real life would change our experience of the world. Online we already choose and create profile pictures which are used to represent us to the larger world. With this device, people would similarly design avatars, which would be like 3D masks of themselves. These would range from the simple addition of a tattoo, to their entire transformation into an alien species of their own design.
The significance here, is that it’s actually the people themselves designing themselves and the way they appear to others in real life. This is the life of the mind superimposed over the physical. Creation of one, by one- a walking self portrait.
As in the examples above, people would want to change the way they look- only here they are changing it in real life as opposed to still pictures. Hair color, skin color, and clothing will all be malleable. This will basically function the same way clothing and style already do: people choose how they want to represent themselves- only here the possibilities will be more extreme, as users are uninhibited by the normal laws of physics and practicality. You can depict yourself as a tiger or in a full scale robotic suite if you do desire, because it’s all just pixels.
You would create these profiles and like any online profile, your friends would have access, meaning that when they walked up to greet you, you would appear to them however you wished. When meeting new people there could be an option: “accept visual profile for Edward Morton?” Clicking “yes”, Edward would transform into a fully armored night right before your eyes, giving you a clue into his personality. Clothes could also be designed without ever learning to sew. People would begin to demonstrate their artistic skills via these digital profiles similar to the way people already make money and fame through designing clothes to be “worn” in Second Life or pimping out their Myspace profiles.
We could create digital pets, friends, and characters, all of which could interact [fight, play, etc.] in the newly rotoscoped world. This is life in Technicolor, complete with real time soft focus when our device realizes that we’re falling in love. Returning to the idea of a 3D replica of our friends being collected through years of hanging out with them, if I were chatting with my friend Jameson over Skype, I could choose to see a simulation of him right in front of me- and we wouldn’t have to stay locked in our rooms tethered to our computers. This could happen in a park, in which I could simulate a turn of the century French street while my friend and I talk on a public bench turned café seat, regardless of the fact that he’s actually 3,000 miles away. All for the sake of comfort, I suppose. His device could even send me information such as when he’s smiling or laughing, which would show up on the face of his simulation in real time. Thus we’re video chatting, but better. This would also work with five or more friends, like a holographic meeting from science fiction. And this is possible now- it’s just a matter of putting the right parts together.
This is old, but the ideas are still relevant:
Skin Deep
1.9
So returning to the idea of "prettiness ratings" and shallowness profiles (SP), it would be important to look at other possibilities enabled by the adoption of such a practice. Based on the input of these SP trends, someone could tell whether or not some sort of hypothetical cosmetic shift would be appealing to various prospective audiences. For instance, if I were considering dying my hair brown, I could use something like photoshop to artificially dye my hair in a photo and submit it to this SP trend follower for advice. I could ask it to judge based on the opinion of women in the same general demographic as my current girlfriend, or even based her own profile if I had access to it, or perhaps women 17-21 years old, or guys in their late 20's or whoever it is that I might be trying to attract. In this way we'll once again be moving more and more toward the "ideal" body type, which is sort of messed up, because it will be a literal way of seeing that people prefer nicely tanned and toned blue-eyed blond-haired Hitler youth types, which would be a rather depressing graph to watch.
Optimistic: The formula might surprise us, however, because it may affect the way advertisers choose models which would in turn affect our idea of beauty. Perhaps we would find that a more realistic physique (neither fat nor anorexic) is more attractive than what we are currently being shown, which would slowly shift the ideal away from where it is today.
Pessimistic: It might end up moving us toward that type of ever more unrealistic reality- especially if people can see it update and play out in real time. The sad thing is that this is necessarily a feedback loop situation, where people decide what is hot partially based on what they are shown which is based off of what people have decided is hot- hence we slowly gravitate into a spiral of clones. Also, I'm guessing that as opposed to being based on realism- especially taking photoshop into account- "ideal" features will become more and more exaggerated and artificial. This has already happened in porn (the harbinger of all practices as disheartening as they are inevitable).
Implication and possible antidote: As actual face to face interaction becomes less and less common its lack might offer a solution to this shallow hot-or-not cesspool. I recently saw an ad for a camera that automatically corrects things like acne and other blemishes when it takes photos. Therefore it wouldn't be too far fetched to think of everyone developing their own personal photoshop profile that would know exactly what alterations to perform to make his/her photos look better.
Say you have a scar on the right side of your face. You manually edit the scar out of a few photos while it records the process (airbrush, etc.) and eventually it knows how to repeat the process for any photo automatically before you post them on something like facebook. Therefore, when people see you, they see you without the mark. As people use these services more often and more exclusively (I already write regularly to people who I've never met in real life...) then the "real" version of the person becomes the "fixed" version, without the leftover scar from a dog bite as a child, or the disfiguring acne, or the burn marks, or even the lack of an arm/eye/etc. The possibilities would become increasingly drastic as these automated programs improve at realistic appearing automated corrections.
But.........
We've only talked about correctional tools. These won't end up being the most common. Think about plastic surgery- at first it started to help those who had been disfigured through birth or through some sort of accident, but what are the most common type today? The elective cosmetic type by far. The same would happen here. Someone would want their hair to be a different color, or even a collection of variable colors. Someone else would want a flatter stomach, or to be slightly horizontally compressed to appear skinnier. Someone else would want larger muscles, breasts, eyes, lips, a smaller nose, head, torso, etc. These could all be automatically inserted and changed at random. Someone else would want different features, for instance the chest of a famous athlete for a picture at the beach. This could be fused with the existing picture to create a realistic synthesis. There are already early versions of this technology:
<-------------Two of these people don't exist.
"Face swapping software finds faces in a photograph and swaps the features in the target face from a library of faces. This can be used to "de-identify" faces that appear in public, such as the faces of people caught by the cameras of Google Street View. So instead of simply blurring the face, the software can substitute random features taken from say Flickr's pool of faces. A mouth here, an eye there."
So someone could decide to have the nose of Scarlett Johansson or the eyes of James Franco. I say someone here because it would add a whole new level of gender blurring possibilities. Someone could choose to feminize or masculate certain or all of their photos, reflecting the way they feel about themselves on the inside or perhaps just in order to see how their unique features would work in a different setting (race as well, which might lead to the ever nasty subject caricaturization.....) This brings us to an important point: all of these features seem "shallow", "unnatural", and absurd, but in reality, it would allow people to design themselves almost like they already create avatars. In an important way it would also be surprisingly less shallow than relying on the genetic lottery and social fashions to determine visual beauty.
And think about what would happen if this whole system were hooked up to some sort of mixed reality glasses to function in real time in real life......
Style Swap
Cosmetic shifts wouldn't necessarily have to be so drastic. We could also create algorithms for clothing or style more generally. There's already this:
"StyleHop, a new fashion startup launching today, is looking to help users pick out the best outfits of the season without having to wade through countless user reviews.
The site ranks outfits on a five star scale based on user input. But instead of using a Hot-Or-Notesque stream of outfits to gather ratings, StyleHop offers a series of social games, each of which ask for a few ratings at a time so users don’t get bored. Included among these games is a Price Is Right-style Flash game that asks users to guess how much they think an individual item of clothing costs (between each round users are asked to rate a few outfits). To help instill a competitive atmosphere the site keeps track of how other users fare, which presumably leads players to continue playing the game (and rate more clothes). StyleHop also plans to offer games across popular social networks like Facebook and MySpace, so it can gain a large user base.
Using the data it collects from these games, the site can generate fashion recommendations to members (each outfit is tagged with certain attributes so broad trends can be established). For now the site is primarily concerning itself with college students, allowing users to view general clothing trends at certain universities.
StyleHop President David Reinke says that the company is going to generate a large portion of its revenues through affiliate fees as it directs users to online stores to purchase the items they see on the site. But the majority of StyleHop’s proceeds will come from specialized studies that the company will offer to retailers and designers as part of a premium subscription model. Clothing companies will be able to ask StyleHop to select a sample of users from a specific demographic, who will be invited to participate in studies where they’ll be asked to rate potential product offerings for the upcoming season. In return, participants will receive some form of compensation (like a gift card from the retailer)."
The whole game thing is a stupid ploy that won't be necessary once these SP become useful and therefore common. This would allow for very utilitarian automated advice based off of statistics. Say you wanted to go shopping for new clothes. You could input some pictures of yourself as well as a general description of the color/style/fit/brand of clothing that you usually wear and where you plan on going shopping. The system would then create a list of suggested items and where to find them in which store for what price (like the restaurant thing we talked about before). This saves you time, the store money (less reshelving), and provides valuable statistics for everyone involved, which will be recycled into the system as stores learn what people buy and thus how to produce and market items more efficiently.
Also, returning to cosmetic shifts, say you're tired of your clothes and want to get a whole new wardrobe for a complete change. You could input some pictures of yourself which the formula would analyze to determine your general body type (skinny jeans don't look good on everyone). Based on who you claimed to be trying to attract it would determine what they would probably like. It would then advise you where to shop (businesses will naturally provide a complete inventory to promote this strange new market) and could even generate a computerized image of you wearing each prospective outfit. The same process would work for haircuts, makeup, tattoos, piercings, glasses, tanning, and pretty much everything shallow and big bu$iness.
As facial recognition and virtual try-on technologies continue to improve, there is an opportunity to use this innovation for the cosmetics industry. Last year, we reviewedTaaz, a virtual makeover site that lets you alter the makeup and hair of a photo of yourself (or a celeb like Angelina Jolie). This week, startup Daily Makeover is launching a new version of its similar product, Makeover Studio, which could make the online makeover process even more detailed and easy to use.
Makeover Studio, which can be used on Daily Makeover’s standalone site and is licensed to more than 60 beauty brands, including Avon and Mary Kay, and web media publishers, lets women upload a picture of themselves (or use a model’s picture) and then try on makeup and hair styles virtually. Women can try on specific brands of makeup in all different shades and styles. When a woman uploads the photo onto the platform, her face is instantly traced using facial recognition technology so that all the different application techniques such as a smoky eye shadow effect or a blush technique can be superimposed on her face in the correct area. Plus, women are able to try on different brands of products in each genre of makeup. So you could try a Dior blush and a Lancome blush and compare the looks on your face.
The new version of Makeover Studio (which will be released later this week) includes new rendering functionality, visualization technology and face-tracing capabilities. The latest version has also added a more expansive list of makeup finishes, including satin, matte, metallic, shimmer, stained, dewy, sheer, and glossy in an attempt to show the reality of the finish of the makeup on a woman’s skin. Makeover Studio has added an option for women to adjust the placement and coverage levels of foundations, concealers, lip colors, eye shadows, mascara, and blush. The detail that Makeover Studio offers to women is compelling. You can differentiate between a lengthening mascara and a thickening mascara or determine how glossy a lipgloss is compared to a lipstick.
Of course, makeup is a set of products that is difficult to buy (especially if the product is pricey) without seeing what it looks like on your face. Daily Makeover says that Makeover Studio’s technology can help bridge this gap in the online space for cosmetics, perhaps now allowing women to get the same trying-on opportunities they would find in a department or retail store for a cosmetics company. Currently on Taaz, you can purchase the cosmetics your “virtually” try on, which is unavailable on Daily Makeover’s site. But companies can brand the makeover application and let users email and publish their “makeovers” to social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace.
There’s no doubt that buying and trying on makeup online is certainly disruptive to the cosmetics industry. But I’m still a little skeptical as to whether the online experience is the same as trying on a product at the beauty counter. When you try on the product at a beauty counter, you see the technique of putting a particular eyeliner or blush on, which isn’t shown on the Makeover Studio. It’s unclear if masses of women will trust that the makeover technology using virtual tools, such as Makeover Studio, is as accurate as actually trying on makeup. That being said, if you can combine the experiences of trying on and learning how to use a cosmetic product into an e-commerce platform, this could closely resemble the experience at the beauty counter.
Good magazine has apparently asked some interviewees to imagine that will improve their daily life. The two ladies in the video below, Freya Estreller and Natasha Case, came up with Photoshop Glasses. A first step to improving the world may be seeing how much better it could be:
If you happen to think that’s a far fetched idea, you are probably right. However, we already saw head tracking software that puts on virtual masks on faces. So maybe in your next job interview, if the interviewer just looks a tad like your ex-boyfriend, all you’ll need to do is wear some dorky glasses, and see him as Optimus Prime.
Advances in digital photography have made it possible to capture large collections of high-resolution images and share them on the internet. While the size and availability of these collections is leading to many exciting new applications, it is also creating new problems. One of the most important of these problems is privacy. Online systems such as Google Street View allow users to interactively navigate through panoramic images of public places created using thousands of photographs. We believe that an attractive solution to the privacy problem is to remove the identities of people in photographs by automatically replacing their faces with ones from a collection of stock images. Automatic face replacement has other compelling applications as well. For example, people commonly have large personal collections of photos on their computers. These collections often contain many photos of the same person(s) taken with different expressions, and under various poses and lighting conditions. One can use such collections to create novel images by replacing faces in one image with more appealing faces of the same person from other images. For group shots, the burst mode available in most cameras can be used to take several images at a time. With an automatic face replacement approach, one could create a single composite image with, for example, everyone smiling and with both eyes open.
In this project, we present a complete system for automatic face replacement in images. Our system uses a large library of face images created automatically by downloading images from the internet, extracting faces using face detection software, and aligning each extracted face to a common coordinate system. This library is constructed off-line, once, and can be efficiently accessed during face replacement. Our replacement algorithm has three main stages. First, given an input image, we detect all faces that are present, align them to the coordinate system used by our face library, and select candidate face images from our face library that are similar to the input face in appearance and pose. Second, we adjust the pose, lighting, and color of the candidate face images to match the appearance of those in the input image, and seamlessly blend in the results. Third, we rank the blended candidate replacements by computing a match distance over the overlap region. Our approach requires no 3D model, is fully automatic, and generates highly plausible results across a wide range of skin tones, lighting conditions, and viewpoints. We show how our approach can be used for a variety of applications including face de-identification and the creation of appealing group photographs from a set of images.
Like the “replay” example above, involving the construction workers and the woman, real time playback and incorporation of these digital images into real life would change our experience of the world. Online we already choose and create profile pictures which are used to represent us to the larger world. With this device, people would similarly design avatars, which would be like 3D masks of themselves. These would range from the simple addition of a tattoo, to their entire transformation into an alien species of their own design. 
So returning to the idea of "prettiness ratings" and shallowness profiles (SP), it would be important to look at other possibilities enabled by the adoption of such a practice. Based on the input of these SP trends, someone could tell whether or not some sort of hypothetical cosmetic shift would be appealing to various prospective audiences. For instance, if I were considering dying my hair brown, I could use something like photoshop to artificially dye my hair in a photo and submit it to this SP trend follower for advice. I could ask it to judge based on the opinion of women in the same general demographic as my current girlfriend, or even based her own profile if I had access to it, or perhaps women 17-21 years old, or guys in their late 20's or whoever it is that I might be trying to attract. In this way we'll once again be moving more and more toward the "ideal" body type, which is sort of messed up, because it will be a literal way of seeing that people prefer nicely tanned and toned blue-eyed blond-haired Hitler youth types, which would be a rather depressing graph to watch. 
<-------------Two of these people don't exist. 
Cosmetic shifts wouldn't necessarily have to be so drastic. We could also create algorithms for clothing or style more generally. There's already this: 
The whole game thing is a stupid ploy that won't be necessary once these
Also, returning to cosmetic shifts, say you're tired of your clothes and want to get a whole new wardrobe for a complete change. You could input some pictures of yourself which the formula would analyze to determine your general body type (skinny jeans don't look good on everyone). Based on who you claimed to be trying to attract it would determine what they would probably like. It would then advise you where to shop (businesses will naturally provide a complete inventory to promote this strange new market) and could even generate a computerized image of you wearing each prospective outfit. The same process would work for haircuts, makeup, tattoos, piercings, glasses, tanning, and pretty much everything shallow and big bu$iness. 
