TECNO, a smartphone brand, announced a collaboration with the Asian Communication Research Centre (ACRC) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. They will work together to improve TECNO’s Universal Tone technology for capturing multi-skin tone portraits on smartphones in Southeast Asia.
The research will focus on skin tone characteristics and portrait preferences in Southeast Asia. It will be led by a team from NTU, including professors from the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information and the Nanyang Business School.
TECNO previously partnered with the University of Leeds to develop Universal Tone technology, which launched in September 2023. This technology aims to capture various skin tones accurately in smartphone photos. TECNO says it has the industry’s largest database of skin tones to support this technology.
This new partnership will focus on Southeast Asia specifically. Researchers will conduct surveys in Indonesia and the Philippines to understand regional preferences for portrait photography.
The goal is to improve TECNO’s camera technology to better represent the diversity of Southeast Asia. But whether the outcome of this research will be including on Transion devices headed to other regions remains unknown.
