#smilescore

Russia has a reputation for not smiling, so it is surprising that in Instagram pictures from around Russia, there are lots of smiling people. It can't all be tourists, Russia is one of the bigger Instagram countries.  Only Russians can say what exactly what it is they are smiling about, but Russia has a higher smile score (27.5) than Finland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, China, although not as high as Ukraine (29.3).   Jetpac City Guides uses image processing technology to analyze 100s of millions of Instagram photos to prepare its city guides for 6000 cities around the world.  It spots faces, and locates and measures smiles.  Showing teeth, which Americans and some other cultures tend to do when they smile, doesn't increase the smile score, it's the shape of the mouth which is important.  Smaller and more rural cities did well, as did towns with many students.  Moscow was one of the least happy cities in Russia as measured by smiles.

Saransk is the happiest city in Russia according to Jetpac's Smile Score, measuring smiles in 100s of millions of Instagram photos. 

The Happiest Cities in Russia ranked by Jetpac's Smile Score:

1 Saransk 38.88 2 Lipetsk 38.32 3 Naberezhnye Chelny 36.31 4 Cheboksary 35.86 5 Magnitogorsk 35.74 6 Bryansk 35.63 7 Novokuznetsk 35.45 8 Tver 35.30 9 Vladimir 33.67 10 Smolensk 33.27 11 Ivanovo 33.23 12 Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk 33.22 13 Omsk 33.11 14 Tambov 32.86 15 Yakutsk 32.72 16 Petrozavodsk 32.56 17 Izhevsk 32.52 18 Tolyatti/Togliatti 32.43 19 Kemerovo 32.20 20 Orenburg 32.17 21 Tomsk 31.92 22 Penza 31.80 23 Arkhangelsk 31.73 24 Anapa 31.69 25 Khabarovsk 31.29 26 Stavropol 31.13 27 Ufa 31.07 28 Barnaul 30.24 29 Belgorod 30.10 30 Perm 30.02 31 Astrakhan 29.85 32 Volgograd 29.82 33 Kirow 29.75 34 Taganrog 29.72 35 Kazan 29.32 36 Pyatigorsk 29.28 37 Yaroslavl 29.27 38 Novosibirsk 29.20 39 Krasnoyarsk 28.92 40 Ulyanovsk 28.77 41 Novorossiysk 28.74 42 Vologda 28.73 43 Chelyabinsk 28.66 44 Samara 28.49 45 Krasnodar 28.15 46 Voronezh 28.08 47 Yekaterinburg 28.06 48 Rostov-on-Don 28.04 49 Surgut 27.87 50 Tyumen 27.81 51 Saratov 27.63 52 Tula 27.33 53 Vladivostok 27.23 54 Kaliningrad 27.10 55 Ryazan 26.68 56 Kostroma 26.58 57 Vyborg 26.32 58 Irkutsk 26.28 59 Sergiev Posad 26.17 60 Nizhny Novgorod 25.23 61 Murmansk 24.50 62 Sochi 24.39 63 Moscow 23.56 64 Saint Petersburg 23.48 65 Gelendzhik 20.46

Volkswagen & Google Launch SmileDrive

Volkswagen has paired up with Google to launch the beta version of their new app: SmileDrive. The app connects to a driver's car via bluetooth, and tracks trip data trip pulled from Google such as location, time and weather to calculate a Smile Score. It has also reimagined the classic PunchDub game so users can collect punches, and has a Smilecast feature which creates a travel log of longer trips to capture memories such as photos and locations.

Why it's relevant?