• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, December 6, 2016

Blippar expanded its augmented reality visual search browser on Tuesday to recognize faces in real time with a simple smartphone camera and return information about that person.

The Blippar app feature, Augmented Reality Face Profiles, should build a bigger consumer following for the app, according to Blippar CEO Ambarish Mitra. He believes it will put the app in the hands of more consumers, so when brands like Nestlé, Condé Nast, Time, Procter & Gamble, Kraft, Heinz, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, and Anheuser Busch launch campaigns, a larger number of consumers will already be familiar with how it works.

"In the world of augmented reality, that was missing," he said. "For any app to do well, you must have a compelling consumer story."

The feature allows users to point the camera phone at any real person or their image in a picture on television and the Blippar app returns information about the person from the company's database filled with more than three billion facts.

Real-time facial recognition is the latest tool, amidst expansion in artificial intelligence and deep-learning capabilities. 

For public figures, their faces will be automatically discovered with information drawn from Blipparsphere, the company's visual knowledge Graph that pulls information from publicly accessible sources, which was released earlier this year.

Public figures can also set up their own AR Face Profile. The tool enables them to engage with their fans and to communicate information that is important to them by leveraging their most personal brand -- their face. 

Users also can create fact profiles -- Augmented Reality profiles on someone’s face, which users create so they can express who they are visually.Users can view each other’s profiles that have been uploaded and published and can add pictures or YouTube videos, as well as AR moods and much more to express themselves in the moment. 

The public figure blipping capabilities are now live and the augmented reality face profile feature is coming soon.