九界独尊 兵心:流露一切的眼睛

面部监控

The all-telling eye

流露一切的眼睛

Webcams can now spot which ads catch your gaze, read your mood and check your vital signs

现在的网络摄像头能识别抓住你眼球广告，读出你的想法，检查你的生命体征。

我们知道你在想什么

IMAGINE browsing a website when a saucy ad for lingerie catches your eye. You don’t click on it, merely smile and go to another page. Yet it follows you, putting up more racy pictures, perhaps even the offer of a discount. Finally, irked by its persistence, you frown. “Sorry for taking up your time,” says the ad, and promptly desists from further pestering. Creepy. But making online ads that not only know you are looking at them but also respond to your emotions will soon be possible, thanks to the power of image-processing software and the ubiquity of tiny cameras in computers and mobile devices.

试想，你在浏览网站，突然一则挑逗的内衣广告抓住了你的眼球。你没有去点它，只是笑了笑，就去看另外的网页。但是它紧随其后，提供更多的劲爆图片，或许甚至提出打折。最终，你皱起眉头，对其纠缠不放感到厌烦。“真抱歉占用了您的时间”，广告说，立马停止了继续纠缠。这可怕！但是，制作那些不仅仅知道你在注意他们，还能对你的情绪作反应的在线广告很快就会成真。这多亏了图像处理软件的力量，以及电脑和移动设备中无处不在的小摄像头。

Uses for this technology would not, of course, be confined to advertising. There is ample scope to deploy it in areas like security, computer gaming, education and health care. But admen are among the first to embrace the idea in earnest. That is because it helps answer, at least online, clients’ perennial carp: that they know half the money they spend on advertising is wasted, but they don’t know which half.

这些技术的使用当然不会局限于广告，还会扩展到安全、计算机游戏、教育和卫生保健等广阔领域中。但是广告人是最早热心这个创意的的人之一。这是因为它至少在线地帮着广告人应对用户经年累月的挑剔：他们知道他们花在广告上的一半资金被浪费了，但是他们不知道是哪一半。

Advertising firms already film how people react to ads, usually in an artificial setting. The participants’ faces are studied for positive or negative feelings. A lot of research, some of it controversial, has been done into ways of categorising the emotions behind facial expressions. In the 1970s Paul Ekman, an American psychologist, developed a comprehensive coding system which is still widely used.

广告公司已经在人为情景中拍摄了人们如何对广告如何反应。研究分析了被试的面孔是积极还是消极情绪。很多研究，其中一些颇有争议，用各种方式分辨面部表情背后的情绪。上世纪七十年代，美国心理学家保罗·艾克曼(Paul Ekman)开发了一套全方位编码系统，这套系统至今仍被广泛使用。

Some consumer-research companies also employ goggle-mounted cameras to track eye movements so they can be sure what their subjects are looking at. This can help determine which ads attract the most attention and where they might be placed for the best effect on a web page.

一些客户研究公司也使用带目镜的摄像头来跟踪眼动，从而确定被试在看什么。这能帮着确定哪些广告吸引了最多的注意力，以及广告应该放在网页何处才能达到最好的效果。

This work is now moving online. Higher-quality cameras and smarter computer-vision software mean that volunteers can work from home and no longer need to wear clunky headgear. Instead, their eyes can be tracked using a single webcam.

这项工作正在移到线上。更高质量的照相机和更聪明的计算机视觉软件意味着志愿者能在家里工作，而且不需要佩戴笨重的头盔。另外，他们的眼睛可以用一个网络摄像头来跟踪。

One of the companies doing such work, Realeyes, which is based in London, has been developing a system that combines eye-spying webcams with emotional analysis. Mihkel Jäätma, who founded the company in 2007, says that his system is able to gauge a person’s mood by plotting the position of facial features, such as eyebrows, mouth and nostrils, and employing clever algorithms to interpret changes in their alignment—as when eyebrows are raised in surprise, say. Add eye-movement tracking, hinting at which display ads were overlooked and which were studied for any period of time, and the approach offers precisely the sort of quantitative data brand managers yearn for.

做这项工作的公司之一，总部位于伦敦的真实眼(RealEyes)，已经开发出一套系统来结合监视眼镜的网络摄像头和情绪分析。于2007年成立该公司的Mihkel Jaatma说他的系统通过绘制诸如眉毛、嘴和鼻孔等面部特征的位置，并使用聪明的算法解释位置变化——比如惊讶时眉毛上扬，能够测量一个人的情绪。加上眼动跟踪，就能提示在任意时段哪一则广告被忽视，哪一则广告被仔细看过，这种手段精准地提供了品牌经理渴望的那种量化数据。

 At present the system is being used on purpose-built websites with, for instance, online research groups testing the effect of various display ads. The next step is to make interactive ads. Because they can spot the visual attention given to them, as well as the emotional state of the viewer, these ads could tailor their responses.

现在，测试不同广告效果的线上研究组使用这套系统有目的地建起的网站。下一步是制作交互的广告。因为它们能认出投给它们的视觉注意，以及观察着的情绪状态，这些广告能够修订它们的反应。

As similar gimmicks become widespread, privacy concerns will invariably mount. People would need to give consent to their webcams being used in this way, Mr Jäätma admits. One way to persuade internet users to grant access to their images would be to offer them discounts on goods or subscriptions to websites.

当相似的玩意儿广为传播时，对隐私的考虑必将提升。Jaatma先生承认，人们需要同意他们的网络摄像头被如此使用。一种说服因特网用户授权获得他们图像的方法将会是给他们提供商品折扣或网络订购。

Realeyes is also working with Kaplan, an educational-services company, on a project in Hungary which is using the system to measure how children respond to virtual games that teach them English. The hope is that by performing the same emotion-reading trick that marketers use, the type of tasks and the characters that appear in them can be made more engaging.

真实眼(Realeyes)也同教育服务公司卡普兰(Kaplan)合作一个匈牙利的项目，项目使用该系统测量孩子如何对教授他们英语的虚拟游戏进行反应。项目希望市场营销人员使用相同的情绪理解工具，把不同的任务类型及其特点变得更加迷人。

The technology would make computer games more engaging, too. Sony, for one, thinks that reading players’ emotions with webcams would let software pick up on their subconscious behaviour and change the game in ways that would enhance the experience. The company claims that in the future it will be possible to have something like a detective game in which the camera can read players’ faces and measure their heart rates in order to have a stab at deciding which ones are lying.

这项技术也能是电脑游戏更吸引人。比如索尼认为通过摄像头理解玩家的情绪将让软件获取他们的潜意识行为，并将游戏变得能够增强体验。该公司宣称将来它将生产类似侦探游戏的东西，利用摄像机能识别玩家的脸且能测量他们的心跳  从而尝试决定谁在撒谎。

In fact, webcams that monitor a person’s heart rate are soon to appear. Instead of sticking sensors onto the skin, Philips has developed a vital-signs camera system which the Dutch company says can measure heart and respiration rates extremely accurately. To calculate the heart rate the camera detects tiny changes in the colour of the skin. These changes, imperceptible to the human eye, occur as the heart pumps blood through the body. The person’s breathing rate is measured by detecting the rise and fall of his chest. The firm will soon launch an app for Apple’s iPad 2 which will allow people to measure their own heart and breathing rates using the two webcams in that device.

实际上，能够监控个人心率的网络摄像头很快就会出现。与在皮肤上粘贴传感器不同，飞利浦开发了一款生命体征摄像系统，据称能够非常准确地测量心率和呼吸频率。摄像头探测皮肤颜色的微小变化来计算心率。这些人类眼睛无法知觉的变化发生在心脏将血液泵向全身的时候。个人的呼吸频率通过探测他的胸部起伏来测量。飞利浦将很快开发一款苹果Ipad2的应用，使人们能够使用设备中两个摄像头来测量他们的心率和呼吸频率。

Philips is developing the technology as a contactless system to keep a virtual eye on hospital patients, such as newborn babies, who might find conventional monitors distressing. The company is also eyeing anxious parents who always want to know what their tots are up to, as well as anxious coaches and their athletes. Advertising firms will, no doubt, be just as keen to measure heartbeats, especially for ads designed to get pulses racing. Those who find it all smacks of Big Brother can turn their webcams off. If you are playing online poker, that is probably a wise idea.