This is really cool. A new technology that can add animated faces to instant messaging, networked gaming, and other real-time communications used on mobile phones and PCs has been developed by Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd. Named “FaceCommunicator”, it uses the same technology as their previous face recognition software that recognizes handhelds’ owners. According to the company, FaceCommunicator would be useful for maintaining privacy and security during first time “face-to-face” communications over video phones, mobile phones, or in IM or chat-room chats on the Internet. Furthermore, Oki said that the facial animations would also let users express emotions that might be hard to express in words.

To generate and control transmitted animated faces, the technology can be triggered by four different sources of user input: video images from PC or mobile phone cameras, voice, text, and mouse/keyboard commands.

Both the animated face and a background image can be selected by the user to suit the need of the moment. Additionally, certain of the animated faces can move their eyebrows and mouths as though talking, which adds a virtual reality dimension to communications, according to Oki.

[ Source ]