With the introduction of various camera phones, selfie has become very popular. Almost every individual nowadays seeks to capture a selfie on any occasion. In fact, it has become so common that individuals don’t even hesitate while clicking selfies at awkward situations. People have incorporated this habit in their daily routine. All thanks to technology! Moving way ahead with technology, Google has now made provisions to surprise all the selfie maniacs with its latest application of ML. This application provides a tool that can be used for creating customized emoji stickers of the selfies captured by the people.
The chat application from Google provides access to this new tool which is capable of turning your selfies into stickers. This option is stated in the application along with other stickers which are used for responding to people. It can be used by a simple tap. Just click on the option “Turn a selfie into stickers” and click a selfie. The image recognition feature of Google enables the conversion of selfie into a sticker.
Lamar Abrams, an artist, writer, and designer for the applauded Cartoon Network Series Steven Universe, has given various features in a kit, which are used in this tool for turning selfies into stickers. This kit comprises of hundreds of facial features like noses, eyes, lips, hair, glasses, etc. According to Google, this tool can create almost 563 quadrillion faces. All you need is to click a selfie and choose the sticker you like!
This tool is the result of great research to find out whether ML can be used to create cartoon or sticker of someone by using a selfie. The man behind the user experience design tools for Google’s communication project, Jason Cornwell, asks the question, “How do you make something that doesn’t just convey what you look like but how you want to project yourself?”
He further adds, “That’s an interesting problem. It gets to ML and computer vision but also human expression. That’s where Jennifer came in.” Jennifer Daniel is the famous art director who became popular for her infographics she designed for Bloomberg business week in the Richard Turley era and then she came in the picture for her visual op-eds for New York Times. According to Jennifer, illustrations can bring in the emotions in a better way, unlike selfies. The unique combination of selfie and emoji create hilarious stickers that can be used for responding in a better manner.
Cornwell made sure that people can identify themselves in the emoji created out of their selfies. For this user testing was involved asking people who created their own emojis, questions like, “Do you see yourself in this image? Would your friends recognize you?”
He also states the reason for which Allo is used as the test bed for all new applications by saying, “What we’re doing with Allo is trying to find all the ways that ML can make messaging better.”
The project aims at creating ML a much-needed feature for all apps and websites, thus making Google a top notch leader in ML. Be ready to explore this amazingly unique selfie-driven application that can make your response look real during conversations!