Affectiva Rolls Out 'Emotion as a Service'

US-based facial analysis specialist Affectiva has launched a solution it calls 'Emotion as a Service', to provide clients with access to emotion data on demand.

Founded in 2009 by Professor Rosalind Picard and research scientist Rana el Kaliouby, in collaboration with the Media Lab at MIT, Affectiva develops software which enables computers to recognize human expressions and deduce emotional and cognitive states. Its products include the Q Sensor wearable biosensor and Affdex facial expression recognition tool.

The new Affdex Emotion as a Service solution enables users to access data collected with optical sensors or cameras, and receive emotion metrics about nuanced facial expressions, basic emotions, and video quality metrics such as lighting conditions and head angles. Affectiva says it is suitable for researchers studying facial expressions of emotion, scientists looking to analyse emotion metrics, and analysts who need to integrate emotion data into their existing platforms.

Commenting on the launch, Kaliouby says the service is the first ever to make emotion data 'very accessible' by providing 'easy and inexpensive analysis of human emotions: video in, emotion analytics out'. He adds: 'Powered with unique emotion data, designers, developers and researchers can truly bring emotional intelligence to the digital world'.

Web site: www.affectiva.com .