[ParvusPonte]

I believe this is a good place to plug a very usable open source computer vision project: http://openbiometrics.org/

Fantastic alternative you can hack with if you're allergic to APIs that "might" charge their free service in the future.

[balakk]

Another project that I think is really good is dlib : http://dlib.net

To compare how well it works compared to OpenCV's face detector: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsK0hzcEyHI

dlib is also great at picking out facial landmarks: http://blog.dlib.net/2014/08/real-time-face-pose-estimation....

Between dlib and OpenBR, I think almost all of these usecases can be covered without commercial APIs - if you have a large enough training set.

Face Recognition is a whole another matter though.

[ape4]

Sadly none of these free/open projects can do gender, age, pose

[jklontz]

OpenBR does gender & age (probably pose in 2015). YMMV though, current algorithm is very dependent on an "ID card" quality photo.

[davis685]

dlib does pose, see: http://blog.dlib.net/2014/08/real-time-face-pose-estimation..... No gender or age prediction though. Do many people care about gender and age prediction?

[alexhawdon]

Those characteristics including ethnicity can be useful for marketing purposes.

I remember reading about a shop that used this sort of technology to profile their customers. It revealed that at a certain time of week they received an unusually large number of Japanese customers (turned out they were on a tour bus route) and responded by repositioning their Japanese member of staff to be a greeter during these periods and it significantly improved their revenue.

A similar product based around this idea might be clothes shop dummies with this built in. This would provide an interesting profile of the people interested in the particular outfit the dummy was modelling which might be useful for further advertising targeting or in the case of a multi-national brand some insights into what they should advertise in which regions.

[mikejarema]

Also of note is clmtracker: https://github.com/auduno/clmtrackr

Its open source (MIT license I believe) and performs some of the same functions as Face++ like detection, "landmarking" and replacing features/mapping a mask to your face. It includes some fun demos as well.

[jklontz]

OpenBR author here, thanks for the plug!

[hackerboos]

I've been doing research for a facial detection/facial information API since Face.com was mothballed by Facebook.

Not loving the idea of relying on third-party APIs for the above reason makes this project is very useful.

Thanks.