Google BlazeFace Performs Submillisecond Neural Face Detection on Mobile GPUs

Cat filters and rock star sunglasses are just the tip of the iceberg in today's ocean of face-based augmented reality (AR) mobile applications. Such effects are however compute-hungry, and today's users want their novelty images to pop up on their smartphone screens without delay. Luckily for us, Google fully appreciates the need for speed. Google researchers have introduced a new face detection framework called BlazeFace, adapted from the Single Shot Multibox Detector (SSD) framework and optimized for inference on mobile GPUs. The lightweight face detector runs at an impressive speed of 200-1000 FPS on flagship smartphones.