Glueck Technologies
Team size: 13, with eight based locally and five off-shore Funding stage: Self funded with grant from Cradle
COMING straight out of Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report is Glueck Technologies Sdn Bhd’s advertising boards which tailors ads according to viewers.
“When developing the service, the movie did come to mind,” chuckled CEO Alberrt Alexander.
Glueck Technologies, set up three years ago, uses artificial intelligence (AI), deep machine learning and facial recognition to detect and analyse in real-time the gender, age, emotional state and attention span of people viewing the ad.
It uses a camera to take a snapshot every few microseconds and processes the information against a proprietary database of facial demographics made up of over five million people from 65 countries.
“The accuracy is quite high even between countries, as expressions – like a smile – are universal whether you’re in Africa or China,” said Alexander. Reflecting this philosophy, the company’s name Glueck is German for happiness.
Remember the scene where Tom Cruise’s character looks at a signboard and its contents immediately change to fit what it assumed would catch his interest? This system allows businesses to display ads based on the make up of the crowd looking at the board.
It would, for instance, display videos of theme parks or toys to families, while young adults may be shown a popular Netflix series or holiday packages and gadgets instead.
Asked how the system deals with modern pedestrians who have their faces buried in their smartphones at all times, Alexander said the advertisements still needed to catch the viewers’ eyes.
“We can measure eye contact in just miliseconds. With facial recognition we can see if the ad makes them happy or even disgusts them,” he said. He explained such feedback is essential in measuring the effectiveness of advertising and even acts as a warning if audiences react poorly to the visuals. For instance, if people are laughing at a sombre ad, the content or tone of the ad needs to be reconsidered.
For people worried about their faces being recorded, Alexander assured that the images are not stored.