NeckFace, one of the first necklace-type wearable sensing technologies, was developed by researchers at Cornell University. The team, led by Cheng Zhang, assistant professor of information science in the Cornell Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, said the technology can continuously track full facial expressions by using infrared cameras to capture images of the chin and face from beneath the neck.
NeckFace is the next generation of Zhang’s previous work, which resulted in C-Face, a similar device but in a headset format. According to Zhang, NeckFace provides significant improvement in performance and privacy, and gives the wearer the option of a less-obtrusive neck-mounted device.
Besides potential emotion-tracking, Zhang sees many applications for this technology. These include virtual conferencing when a front-facing camera is not an option; facial expression detection in virtual reality scenarios; and silent speech recognition...