Extraordinary software is under the process of creation by University of Illinois, which can determine your exact age just by looking at your face. 

As reported by Thomas S. Huang, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Illinois, “Age-estimation software is useful in applications where you don't need to specifically identify someone but would like to know their age.”

There were too many advantages associated with this software as put forward by Huang. He said that the age determining software would help “stop underage drinkers from entering bars, prevent minors from purchasing tobacco products from vending machines, and deny children access to adult Web sites.” Huang is the head of the Image Formation and Processing group at the University's Beckman Institute.  

However, the invention has already started receiving some criticism from Eurekalert. They feel that determining someone’s age is not an easy process for anyone, not even the computer, since “ageing process is determined not only by a person's genetic makeup, but by many other factors as well, including health, location and living conditions.”

However Huang defended the software by saying, “Human faces do convey a significant amount of information, and provide important visual cues for estimating age. Facial attributes, such as expression, gender and ethnic origin, play a crucial role in our image analysis.”

The age estimating software that contains three modules including face detection, discriminative manifold learning, and multiple linear regressions, was tested by the researchers using database containing photos of 1,600 faces.  

The software is capable of determining age from one till 93. Huang reported, “The software's accuracy ranges from about 50 percent when estimating ages to within five years, to more than 80 percent when estimating ages to within 10 years. The accuracy can be improved by additional training on larger databases of faces.”

Huang even explained some other benefits of this software, such as its utilization for electronic customer relationship management. 

Huang said, “All of this can be done without violating anyone's privacy. Our software does not identify specific individuals. It just estimates their ages.”