Lusting for Angelina Jolie’s full lips or Brad Pitt’s blue eyes could become a thing of the past.
A Bellevue, Washington, startup wants to make dating star look-alikes happen. ActiveSymbols on Monday launched a beta version of its Eyealike web site that allows users to quickly search for real people who resemble their favorite star across dating sites.
Eyealike compares star facial features—including skin tone and hair color, texture, and length—to 250,000 prospects on Match.com and AmericanSingles.com with the use of facial recognition software.
“We’re looking to change the way people search for people on social networks,” ActiveSymbols President Greg Heuss said.
But don’t be too surprised if your dream date match to Mr. Pitt looks more like a mug shot of Nick Nolte after a hard night drinking. That’s because the returned prospects can be all over the map in appearances. It doesn’t stop there though: Beta participants can also upload photos of themselves to discover their own celebrity look-alikes—sometimes pleasing, other times horrifying.
Eyealike claims, however, that it does a better job than other technologies. It said it has an advantage because its software algorithm evaluates the complete geometry of the face rather than searching by descriptive tag words such as black hair, green eyes, or fair skin. Eyealike said it returns more accurate match results by analyzing individual features separately.
“Online dating sites are pretty generic,” said Mark Brooks, editor of OnlinePersonalsWatch.com. “Match.com is probably keeping a careful eye on it.”
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan-based Logicalis owns 50 percent of privately funded ActiveSymbols. The startup, which was spun out of Logicalis earlier this year, has raised nearly $1.5 million in funding from angel investors Mike Cox, former CEO and current chairman of Logicalis, Jeff Reed, founder and CEO of ActiveSymbols, and John Haffen, an investor with previous ties to Logicalis.
Eyealike is intended to showcase the visual-based search technology rather than be a destination site itself. Having experienced the difficulties in building destination sites before, Mr. Heuss said that he is “totally focused on licensing ability.”
The company has signed initial nondisclosure agreements with a couple of major social-networking and online-dating customers, he said.
However, the image recognition technology is not limited to facial flirting. In the future, the company plans to push its technology into the video copyright surveillance sector. Mr. Heuss said that they are already talking to video content providers. The startup also hopes that one day its technology will be used to help track down predators on the FBI’s most wanted list.
Image recognition technology is increasingly moving beyond the security sector and into consumer search engines and social networks. Swedish start-up Polar Rose uses 3-D mapping techniques to identify faces and search for photos of similar-looking people. San Mateo, California-based Riya’s Like.com allows users to search for objects, such as the perfect red purse, based on a photo of the item.
ActiveSymbols, however, remains focused on the dating market for now. Yet those looking to date Ms. Jolie or Mr. Pitt look-alikes might be more than a bit disappointed with the search results. But Mr. Heuss insists that the technology does the best facial match possible. The “computer doesn’t lie,” he said.
Maybe so. Just don’t be surprised if your search for Angelina Jolie’s full-lipped look-alike serves up a bald guy named OverweightLover1965.