Microsoft's Robot Overlord Can Guess How Old You Are

Because Microsoft doesn't want us to get any work done, the company has launched a new website that uses facial recognition technology to scan a photo and guess a person's age and gender, Mashable reports. How-Old.net makes use of Microsoft's new Face API, which debuted at this week's Build Developer Conference. Gizmodo reports the site was built in one day, and people are frittering away nearly that much time on it, age-exposing (or age-shaming, in some cases) their own photos or those of famous entities such as Vladimir Putin, Yoda, and Ronald McDonald.

Its accuracy (or lack thereof) is being poked fun of all over the Internet (one International Business Times writer says the site identified his 33-year-old wife as a 66-year-old man), but it's an entertaining way to kick off the weekend, at any rate. If you can't bear to watch Microsoft age you half a century, head over to the #HowOldRobot hashtag on Twitter to see what fun others are having assigning ridiculous age designations to celebrities, politicians, and inanimate objects with faces. Or check out Gawker's valiant attempt to appease Lorde Truthers by trying to figure out how old the singer really is. (More Microsoft stories.)