AURA — Real-time facial analysis (YouTube)

About

AURA overlays real-time facial analysis on any YouTube video — and is honest about the one thing it cannot do.

WHAT IT MEASURES
• Action Units (FACS) — ~20 AUs estimated per frame from Google MediaPipe's 52 blendshapes
• Expressions — EMFACS prototypes (happiness, anger, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, contempt)
• Microexpressions — rapid AU spikes (onset + offset under ~600 ms), logged live
• A facial-landmark mesh painted over the player

100% ON-DEVICE PRIVACY
All analysis runs locally in your browser through MediaPipe + WebAssembly. No video frame is ever uploaded, stored, or sent to any server. There is no account, no tracking, no telemetry.

HONEST BY DESIGN
This is NOT a lie detector. Detecting deception from the face is scientifically unreliable — humans score about 54% (barely above chance; Bond & DePaulo, 2006), and large behavior-detection programs built on the idea have failed audit (TSA SPOT; GAO, 2013). The optional "incongruence index" is clearly labeled as observational and non-diagnostic. Treat every reading as an estimate, not a verdict, and never use it to judge, screen, or accuse anyone.

HOW TO USE
1. Open any youtube.com/watch video with a visible face
2. The analysis panel appears on the right — toggle it from the toolbar icon

Built on Google MediaPipe FaceLandmarker.