Amazon Web Services' facial recognition technology, Rekognition, can now detect fear. At least, that's according to Amazon -- but given that the tech has been proven inaccurate again and again, it's hard to say whether the newly announced capability actually works as advertised. On Monday, Amazon Web Services (AWS) published a blog post detailing several updates to its controversial tech, including improved accuracy at detecting seven emotions on a person's face -- happy, sad, angry, surprised, disgusted, calm, and confused -- with fear added as an eighth emotion. The company also claimed it had improved Rekognition's ability to estimate a person's gender as well as their age, with the tech now providing a narrower range of possibilities for most age groups. The announcement of the updates was met by a wave of criticism online, with cloud computing economist Corey Quinn noting that the move seems incredibly ill-timed given recent controversy surrounding Rekognition.

Amazon announced a breakthrough from its AI experts Monday: Their algorithms can now read fear on your face, at a cost of $0.001 per image--or less if you process more than 1 million images. The news sparked interest because Amazon is at the center of a political tussle over the accuracy and regulation of facial recognition. Amazon sells a facial-recognition service, part of a suite of image-analysis features called Rekognition, to customers that include police departments. Another Rekognition service tries to discern the gender of faces in photos. The company said Monday that the gender feature had been improved--apparently a response to research showing it was much less accurate for people with darker skin.

Amazon announced a breakthrough from its AI experts Monday: Their algorithms can now read fear on your face, at a cost of $0.001 per image--or less if you process more than 1 million images. The news sparked interest because Amazon is at the center of a political tussle over the accuracy and regulation of facial recognition. Amazon sells a facial-recognition service, part of a suite of image-analysis features called Rekognition, to customers that include police departments. Another Rekognition service tries to discern the gender of faces in photos. The company said Monday that the gender feature had been improved--apparently a response to research showing it was much less accurate for people with darker skin. Rekognition has been assessing emotions in faces along a sliding scale for seven categories: "happy," "sad," "angry," "surprised," "disgusted," "calm," and "confused."

Amazon says its increasingly popular facial recognition software has learned a few new tricks, including the ability to discern when someone is scared. The software, called'Rekognition', has added'fear' to its list of detectable emotions which already includes'Happy', 'Sad', 'Angry', 'Surprised', 'Disgusted', 'Calm' and'Confused,' said Amazon in an announcement earlier this week. In addition to its emotion capabilities, Amazon says its has also improved Rekognition's ability to identify gender and age more accurately. Amazon's facial recognition software can now detect'fear' and better glean age and gender according to an announcement by the company. The improved age features offer smaller age ranges across the spectrum and also more accurate range predictions, said the company.