Applied Recognition's Ver-ED Enables Lenovo AirClass' Emotion Insights

TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - July 05, 2017) - Applied Recognition, Inc. announced today that their emotion detection and analysis solution, Ver-ED, is enabling the distinctive Emotions Insight feature in Lenovo's new virtual training solution, AirClass, the comprehensive virtual training platform that helps corporate trainers to harness the flexibility and breadth of options that virtual training offers. Emotion detection enables corporate trainers to track the level of student engagement and attention, bringing more real-life feedback into the virtual classroom environment. Emotion Insights, powered by Ver-ED, estimates engagement by measuring eye state (open or closed) and level of attendee focus on the material being presented, as well as whether the attendee has a positive or negative disposition based on a spectrum of common emotions (e.g., happiness, surprise, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, contempt, confusion, and frustration.) The data is anonymously captured and aggregated across attendees to enable an instructor to assess the effectiveness of both their delivery and their material through a single graphical interface.

According to Training Magazine¹, the $70 billion corporate training industry is embracing the digital transformation. Businesses are spending more per learner -- 73% of companies surveyed used virtual classroom delivery methods -- yet employees are engaged in 5% fewer face-to-face instruction hours. A report from corporate training company, Corporate Visions², indicates that 65% of companies plan to increase their investments in virtual training.

"Lenovo is committed to making corporate online training more effective and impactful for trainers and participants", said Rick German, general manager, Lenovo Software. "AirClass helps corporate trainers get closer to their attendees by providing insights to improve curriculum, instruction and the overall effectiveness of distance learning."

Built on the FaceLocate™ algorithm, trained for over a decade

Ver-ED is built on Applied Recognition's face detection algorithm, FaceLocate, trained for over a decade on hundreds of thousands of faces. Ver-ED maps the basic human emotions using advanced detection techniques and determines pose by tracking facial landmarks.

"We are very pleased to work with Lenovo Software to bring our emotion recognition solution to corporate training environments. We see this as a first step in bringing advanced face detection and authentication technologies to the growing distance learning market", said Don Waugh, co-CEO of Applied Recognition.

Ver-ED is available as a cross-platform SDK with support for PCs, Macs, iOS, and Android devices.

About AirClass

Introducing the all-new AirClass from Lenovo, where it's easy to keep people engaged with online training. AirClass makes it feel like participants are in the room with you, and provides insights that let trainers see beyond the screen to accurately read emotions and measure engagement. Use real-time polling, virtual whiteboarding, video annotating, activity streams and more to keep everyone actively involved. Even breakout rooms are divided up based on live engagement scores -- so you'll never have a virtual room without productive levels of participation.

It's virtual training for modern learning.

About Applied Recognition

APPLIED RECOGNITION INC. is a leader in face detection, recognition and authentication technology delivering innovative products for consumers, enterprises and application developers. Since 2005, Applied Recognition has been perfecting facial recognition technology, with an extensive portfolio of patents in facial recognition and indexing, and enterprise-grade, biometric authentication technology.

Applied Recognition serves a broad range of customers, including financial services providers, IoT device manufacturers, and leading software publishers. Licensing is available for software development kits; some solutions can be delivered via API. To learn more, visit www.appliedrecognition.com.

¹ Source: Training Magazine – Training Industry Report 2016

² Source: Corporate Visions