Skip to main content

Disney might be scanning your face next to feed its neural net technology

disney neural net research image
Ktsdesign/123RF
Disney really wants to know if you like its movies. The entertainment company conducts copious research to answer that question, and in fact, it has its own division, Disney Research, that’s focused on figuring out ways to make you love its movies even more. Now, the company is applying neural net technology to determining if audiences are reacting as they should to Disney’s latest films.

The information comes via Phys.org, which took a look at some recent work by Disney Research to apply deep learning concepts to figure out how audiences are reacting based on their facial expressions. So far, the methods are having better results than the organization’s usual techniques.

Related Videos

Researchers are using what they’re calling “factorized variational autoencoders,” or FVAEs, to use an audience member’s early facial expressions to predict how that person will react to a movie in its entirety. The data was gathered by using infrared cameras that monitored audience faces during 150 showings of a total of nine movies including Big Hero 6, The Jungle Book, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

According to Zhiwei Deng, a Simon Fraser University doctoral candidate who participated in the research, “The FVAEs were able to learn concepts such as smiling and laughing on their own. What’s more, they were able to show how these facial expressions correlated with humorous scenes.”

Disney Research
Disney Research

The real value of the neural net technology is that it allows the analysis of tremendous amounts of data, 16 million facial expressions generated by 3,179 audience members — much more than humans could evaluate without computerized assistance. By correlating common expressions between audience members, the system is capable of taking just a few minutes’ worth of facial expression data and learning a wide range of general facial expressions and then figuring out how audiences are likely to react to an entire movie.

Longer-term, the same techniques could be used to create models capable of making predictions from any kind of time series data. For example, studying how the wind affects a few trees could be used to model an entire forest. As Markus Gross, Disney Research vice president put it:

“We are all awash in data, so it is critical to find techniques that discover patterns automatically. Our research shows that deep learning techniques, which use neural networks and have revolutionized the field of artificial intelligence, are effective at reducing data while capturing its hidden patterns.”

Don’t be surprised, therefore, if you notice some extra cameras aimed your way while you’re viewing your next Disney film. It might just be that you’re contributing to Disney’s efforts to figure out just what it takes to make its next movie a blockbuster.

Editors' Recommendations

Apple’s Reality Pro headset just got demoed in a secret ceremony
A rendering of four Apple mixed-reality headsets (Reality Pro) in various colors sitting on a surface.

Apple’s mysterious Reality Pro headset just hit a major milestone last week when it was demonstrated in a large-scale ceremony to around 100 of the company’s top executives. That’s encouraging, as showing it off to so many high-ranking employees suggests the device is almost ready for launch.

The revelation comes from Mark Gurman’s weekly Power On newsletter, wherein the Bloomberg journalist explained that the event marks a notable turning point in the mixed-reality headset’s development ahead of its anticipated launch at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June.

Read more
This Lenovo laptop with 128GB RAM is over $5500 off, and that’s no joke
this lenovo laptop with 128gb ram is over 5500 off deal thinkpad p16 feature

If you're looking for one of the most high-end laptop deals around, Lenovo continues to knock things out of the park with a deal on the Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Mobile Workstation. As with all Lenovo laptop deals, it's been given a fairly hefty estimated value price by Lenovo of $9,649 but given the spec, that could be possible here. Right now, the laptop is discounted by a huge $5,564 so it's down to $4,085. That's no impulse buy price but if you're looking for a supremely powerful laptop, it could be worth the investment. Intrigued? Let's take a look at what it offers.

Why you should buy the Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Mobile Workstation
The Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Mobile Workstation is high-end stuff. In many cases, it's probably going to be overkill if you simply want a laptop to complete basic tasks on. If you need a powerhouse of a system, regular edit videos, or simply need something that truly never misses a beat for a long time, this could be the one for you. It has a powerful 12th-generation Intel Core i9 processor paired up with 128GB of RAM. Yup, we said RAM, not SSD storage. That's a frankly phenomenal amount given even high-end gaming systems tend to offer 32GB at most right now, so this is seriously future-proofed. For storage, you get 2TB of SSD storage so -- again -- it's going to last a very long time.

Read more
Get a $50 Amazon gift card when you subscribe to Microsoft 365
Computer user touching on Microsoft word icon to open the program.

One of the best Microsoft Office deals is on Microsoft 365 Family at Amazon. If you buy today, you can get a 12-month subscription for the whole family for $100 instead of $150, plus you get a $50 Amazon gift card bundled in for free. Combined, that means the Microsoft 365 Family Subscription works out at just $50 for the year. Here's a look at who needs it and why.

Why you should buy Microsoft 365 Family 12-month subscription
If you've been checking out the best alternatives to Microsoft Office, you'll appreciate that you can't go wrong with the genuine article. This version of Microsoft 365 gives you 12 months of access for up to six people so the whole family can easily use its services all year around. It provides you with access to Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft Outlook.

Read more