kaocheki - who Japanese software thinks you look like

By Ken Y-N ( May 7, 2007 at 21:06) · Filed under Uncategorised

I saw on the television this morning a new service (currently free) for camera-equipped mobile phones. Surf to http://kaocheki.jp (顔ちぇき) with your mobile, snap you or your friend’s face, post it off to them and it comes back and tells you which famous person you resemble. Even if you don’t have a mobile or live overseas, you can try attaching a photograph (full face, filling about 80% of the frame) to an otherwise empty mail message addressed to female@kaocheki.jp for women, male@kaocheki.jp for men, or mix@kaocheki.jp if you’re just not sure. This direct method is not guaranteed to work. Mobile phone snaps are usually up to 240×320 pixels and 30 to 40 kilobytes in size, JPG in format, so attaching a 5 megabyte TIFF will probably not work.

UPDATE: Wifey snapped my mug last night, sent it off to the female address above, and in reverse order, at number three I am apparently 16% like 仲間由紀恵 Yukie Nakama, which I suppose is nice. At number two is 中島知子, Tomoko Nakajima, who I am 18% like. She’s one half of the comedy duo Othello. At number one, with another stunning 18% resemblance, is だいたひらる, Hikaru Daita, a dead-pan and rather plain-looking comedienne. The software must be broken! Wifey has just informed me that for the either/or address too Hikaru Daita was my top match.

Also note that although you may be able to email photos from another address, you cannot view the results from browsers other than those on a mobile phone it seems, but the reply email does contain the top match. Whether or not they only reply to mails from mobile phones is another big unknown!

Who do you resemble?

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