14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft Garage has released another mobile app, this time only for Android, but with an iOS version already on its way and obviously without any plans for a Windows phone flavor.
Called Face Swap, this little tool does exactly what its name suggests: it puts your face on pictures it finds online using Microsoft’s super-advanced facial recognition system and Bing image search.
At first run, the app requires users to take a selfie in order for the facial recognition system to kick in. Once this step is complete, Face Swap lets you search online for more photos, open pictures from the camera roll, or browse already defined categories for the most popular faces and scenes.
Face Swap can automatically match skin tones, lighting conditions, head turns, and tilts, and can even process and place multiple faces in a single scene, which makes it just perfect for group shots.
Microsoft facial recognition system
Microsoft explains that the Garage team needed 5 months to develop this app, and it was originally just a project supposed to take advantage of the company’s facial recognition technology.
“Face Swap was developed from conception to app store over 5 months by the small incubation team within the Bing organization. The engineering team included developers in remote locations, allowing us to work around the clock and iterate rapidly on the product. We employed continuous user research studies with external participants, which helped us build a product that is easy and intuitive to use,” the firm says.
It is completely free and comes with no ads, so you can download Face Swap for Android using this link. There’s no ETA as to when the iOS version could land, but it shouldn’t take too long before it happens since the Android version is already running very smoothly.
The most recent Android version is 1.0.0.32, and the team promises to ship more updates and improvements as work on the app advances.
