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Visual computing The facial-industrial complex BEIJING AND SAN FRANCISCO Ever better and cheaper, face-recognition technology is spreading TOURING the headquarters of Megvii optimistic estimates put it at a few billion Lin Beijing is like visiting Big Brother's dollars--the technology has started to per- engine room. A video camera in the firm's meate the wider business landscape. The lobby recognises visitors in the blink of an main reason is that the accuracy of facial e. Other such devices are deployed recognition is rapidly improving, putting it around the office. Some of the images they on the same trajectory as speech recogni- capture are shown on a wall of video tion, which really took off when accuracy called "Skynet, after the artificial-intelli- improved by a final few percentage points, sonce (AI) system in the Terminator" to almost 100%. "Most people underesti- films. One feed shows a group of employ- mate the difference between 95% and 99% ees waiting in front of an elevator with a accuracy-99% is a game-changer, An- white frame around every face and the drew Ng, a noted al researcher, has said name of each person next to it. Quizzed on about speech recognition. the Orwellian overtones of the set-up, Yin What's more, the smartphone will do Oi, the startup's chief executive, simply re- for face recognition what smart speakers, marks that "this helps catch bad guys." such as the Amazon Echo, have done for Even if Mr Yin wanted to ponder the im speech recognition: make it acceptable to plications of the technology, he would not consumers. Millions of Chinese already have the time. Megvii is busy building what he describes as a "brain" for visual computing. The firm has come a long way Halt, who goes there? since its founding in 2011 (its name stands Facial biometrics global revenue by region, $m for "mega vision"). More than 300,000 companies and individuals around the FORECAST - Middle East world use its face-recognition technology, and Africa which is called Face++, making it one of the Latin America 400 biggest such services. In December Megvii raised $100m, giving it a valuation of near- Asia Pacific y $2bn and turning it into the world's first 200 on-dollar startup from might be called the "facial-industrial complex". Europe Viders in this field sell hardware and North America re tools to recognise faces and then 2015 16 17 18 19 20 those faces to other useful data. Al- Source: Tractica the market is fairly small-the most 600 Providers in thi software tools to me connect those faces to though the marke