A new app Knoto, launched on the iTunes app store Monday, uses face recognition to automatically send photos to friends. According to the company, the app, which is due to receive its patent for the AutoSending technology, enables users to take a photo of a friend and it automatically shows up on their phone.
"Friends would always ask me for photos, but I'd always forget," said Jonas Lee, CEO of PhotoKharma, the company that developed the app in a media release. "We realised that artificial intelligence could be used to remove all of the friction involved in sharing photos, so we created Knoto."
Explaining how the app works, the company said users download the app, select the friends to whom they want to AutoSend, and start taking photos. When Knoto recognises a person that has been enabled for AutoSending, it automatically sends them the photo.
The AutoSending feature is the agglomeration of two trends. Artificial intelligence has improved the accuracy of face recognition. Moreover, the phone has now become the primary camera for most users.
Dr. Erik Learned-Miller, scientific adviser to Knoto and professor at the University of Massachusetts in the College of Information and Computer Sciences, said while Knoto would have been a no-brainer a few years ago, today it was a major technology disruption.
Lee cautioned of some potential pitfalls on the app as well.
"There will occasionally be recognition errors, and that can be scary for some people. You can limit AutoSending to specific friends, but Knoto still might not be right for someone with a lot of sensitive photos," said Lee.
