Microsoft’s New Website Tries to Guess Your Age

1 minute read

If you’ve ever wondered how old you look in pictures, Microsoft has just developed an addictive new website that offers the answer. The site, how-old.net, takes data from an uploaded image to determine the subject’s age and gender.

According to Microsoft’s Machine Learning blog, the project started as a simple experiment among Microsoft engineers. They were “playing around” with new face detection software and decided to ask a couple hundred people to try it out and tell them what they thought. Within hours, the experiment had reached 30,000 people curious about whether a simple Internet site could accurately read their face.

Using existing Microsoft APIs, or application program interfaces, the engineers combined a program that detects information about faces in a photograph with tools that embed search results and location data.

Don’t sweat it if the site gets your age wrong—different pictures elicit different results, so you can always try again.

See How Presidents Age in the White House, According to Microsoft

Barack Obama in January, 2009. Real age: 47Saul Loeb—AFP/Getty Images
Barack Obama in April, 2015. Real age: 53Pablo Martinez Monsivais—AP
George W. Bush in April 2001. Real age: 54Antonio Scorza—AFP/Getty Images
George W. Bush in May, 2008. Real age: 61Saul Loeb—AFP/Getty Images
Bill Clinton in January, 1993. Real age: 46White House/AFP/Getty Images
Bill Clinton in January, 2001. Real age: 54Paul J. Richards—AFP/Getty Images
George Bush, Sr. in January, 1989. Real age: 64Cynthia Johnson—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
George Bush, Sr. in December, 1992. Real age: 68Renaud Giroux—AFP/Getty Images
Ronald Reagan in January, 1981. Real age: 70 Harry Langdon—Getty Images
Ronald Reagan in February, 1989. Real age: 78Dirck Halstead—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

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