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www.japantoday.com 2015 000033.txt

#Sony targets beauty market with'Skin View Camera'Sony Corp will release in Mid-march a system that enables to accurately check the texture, blotches, pores and color of skin with a palm-sized device. The system, eautyexplorer, is targeted at beauty-treatment clinics, cosmetics makers, beauty product stores, etc. t is a product that proposes mental and physical cares, which can be the source of human health, said Yasuhiro Ueda, SVP, corporate executive, senior general manager, Image Sensor Business Division, Device Solutions Business Group, Sony. The system consists of four elements:(1) kin View Camerafor checking skin, (2) cloud server using Sony analysis algorithm,(3) Skin Analyzer application software, which runs on a dedicated tablet computer and (4) Skin Viewer smartphone application. The first, second and third elements are used for customer services at beauty-treatment clinics, cosmetics makers and beauty product stores. The fourth element is for customers (consumers) who visited them and had checked their skin with the system. Skin View Camera is a measurement device equipped with a CMOS image sensor, optical lens, LED device and Wifi module. oing forward, we will propose new sets (apparatuses) from the device side, Ueda said, introducing the camera. The camera takes images of skin with the CMOS sensor and checks the moisture of the skin with a dedicated sensor. It weighs 115g. The measurement is done just by putting the camera on skin and pressing the hooting button. Measurement data is sent to a cloud server via Wifi. One of the distinguishing features of the new system is that its measurement results are analyzed by a cloud server using SKEP, an algorithm that Sony developed in 2012. The state of skin is analyzed by applying LED LIGHTS with different wavelengths (such as visible light which is reflected on skin surface, and near-infrared light, which comes back after passing through the inside of the skin) to skin and measuring reflected lights with the CMOS sensor. Based on multiple image data that indicate the states of the surface and inside of the skin, the state of the skin is analyzed from various points of view including texture, blotch and pore. e make use of technologies developed for improving the image qualities of TVS and cameras (for the image analysis), Sony said. For example, the texture of skin can be evaluated with a high accuracy by analyzing size uniformity, number, direction, etc. Also, it is possible to visualize an invisible skin state based on the amounts of melanin and redness contained in the skin. easurement items can be added (because of the use of the cloud server), Sony said. he more the data, the higher the measurement accuracy. Skin Analyzer shows analysis results on a tablet computer by using five-grade evaluation and indexes such as skin age so that they can be understood easily. For example, it displays such words as exture: 4. 8, Blotch: 2. 4, Pore: 4. 2, kin age-10 years oldand ily dry. With Skin Viewer, customers can check data stored on the cloud server with their smartphones and use the data as, for example, the indexes of the effects of beauty-treatment that they received at clinics. Because the new system is targeted at women, female employees were assigned for the product planning, design, technology development and marketing. ncluding managers, women account for about 30%(of the employees engaged in the project), Sony said. Sony is not considering selling the system for general consumers anytime soon. In consideration of the Japanese beauty market whose scale is about ¥: 650 billion (approx US$5. 5 billion), the company aims to chieve a certain level of presencein the market, it said. Also, Sony has started a research to apply the new technology to the analysis of scalp e

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