(washingtonpost)
Facial recognition platform Face.com could foil the plans of all those under-age kids looking to score some booze. Fake IDs might not fool anyone for much longer, because Face.com’s new application programming interface (API) can detect a person’s age by scanning a photo.

With its facial recognition system, Face.com has built two Facebook apps that can scan photos and tag them for you. It also offers an API for developers to use its facial recognition technology in the apps they build.

It’s latest update to the API can scan a photo and determine a person’s minimum age, maximum age, and estimated age. It might not be spot-on accurate, but it could get close enough to determine your age group.

The hope is to build the technology into apps that restrict or tailor content based on age. For example, a mobile app could scan a child’s face, determine they’re too young to view adult content, and block it. Or — and this is where the tech could get futuristic and creepy — a display with a camera could scan someone’s face when they walk into a store and deliver ads based on their age.

In addition to the age-detection feature, Face.com has updated its API with 30 percent better facial recognition accuracy and new recognition algorithms, according to the company. The updates were released Thursday and the API is available for any developer to use...
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Another rite of passage gone.