Back in 2013, the Oxford Dictionary had proclaimed the word ‘selfie’ to be the word of the year and rightly so, after all, the word ‘selfie’ came into the mainstream usage almost immediately after the front cameras on the smartphones were improved.
So, all the smartphone developers are doing their bit of improvising the front cameras on their smartphones. Now, Microsoft is working on improving the quality of these selfie images by using machine intelligence technology, and so has brought its Selfie app to the Android platform.
First on iOS, Now to Android
It has been almost a year, last December to be more precise after Microsoft had released its Selfie app on the iOS platform at the App Store. Microsoft did take a chance by trying its luck with this new Selfie app that works on iPhone and iPad devices which are running on iOS 8.0 or later. Some Android users have been spending the past 11 months hoping and praying that a version of the Selfie app would be found in the Google Play Store. And now, the wish of the Android users has come true with the Microsoft Selfie App being launched even on the Android platform. The Selfie app by Microsoft basically improves the quality of the images which have been clicked using the front camera of the smartphone, by using machine learning vision technology.
Variable Consideration by Using Machine Vision
Microsoft has reportedly said in its product description page on Google Play that the company’s Selfie app is backed by the computer vision technology and so it can intelligently and efficiently consider parameters like age, skin tone, gender, lighting and many other such variables, all in just a single click. By using this Selfie app and its tools, the users can transform their average-looking images into enhanced and embroidered, natural-looking photos in just a few seconds.
Just like the Lumia Selfie app for the smartphones that are running on Windows, the Microsoft Selfie app also uses algorithms and various other data like the age and gender of the person in the photo, which the app detects all by itself and works on it to make a selfie look better. To improve the quality of the selfies, the Microsoft Selfie app comes with 12 filters that run on an algorithm which is capable of adjusting the exposure, lighting, and color balance, among all the other things which can be accessed to remove the slightest imperfections, all at just a single tap. The users are also given an option of choosing the color theme for their images in the app.
Microsoft had also created a short video which shows some ‘before’ and ‘after’ photographs to give the users an idea of how the Microsoft Selfie app works. Just like on the App Store, the Microsoft Selfie app is now available for free on the Android platform and can be downloaded from Google Play. There are no additional in-app purchases as all the features are already included in the app.