Photo recognition.

by **trubrit** » January 22, 2011, 1:03 pm

My query on passion fruits leads me to ask. Is there a photo recognition site whereby you could submit a photo and find out what it is ? I spent an hour this morning identifying that thing, simply because I didn't know its name . Obviously if I had I could have got instant recognition from Google. It would seem so simple to upload a photo and get an answer. If there isn't, I am sure the technology must be available to do it , even if it just gives suggestions . Maybe a business opportunity for someone more computer savvy than me . Could be called ' What is it?" :-k

by **BobHelm** » January 22, 2011, 1:23 pm

Not sure if there is one on the net...
However that genius who is called Steve Jobs - the owner of Apple - is already ahead of you TB.
With the i-phone you can take a picture of a (reasonably) famous building, e-mail it to a site & by return you will get a e-mail telling you about the building - this short video is a demonstration of it in action.

Another project underway for the i-phone is a face recognition system -

We’ll then go on a discuss how to use the OpenCV library to build a simple application to perform face recognition on images taken directly using the iPhone’s own camera.

These are 'for profit' based projects though.
The second one has a lot of privacy issues attached to it that make me rather uncomfortable..
The building recognition one - the idea is that you can then say to your -phone, OK I am thirsty/hungry/want to buy a xxxx & it will direct you via GPRS to the shop/establishment of your choice..

by **stattointhailand** » January 22, 2011, 6:45 pm

Sounds to me that Eyes, Ears, Mouths, and Brains will all be redundant soon. What the 'ell will life be like in a few years? The kids today haven't got a clue how to add up, coz they all used calculators at school and didn't learn arithmatic. If they get everything done for them "on line", they will get up in the morning, put in an ear piece, and walk round all day like zombies, being told everything and not having to talk, ask or think for themselves ......... glad I wont be around.

by **parrot** » January 22, 2011, 8:13 pm

"If they get everything done for them "on line", they will get up in the morning, put in an ear piece, and walk round all day like zombies, being told everything and not having to talk, ask or think for themselves"

I'll bet the religious folks said the same thing when Gutenberg started printing bibles. Well, maybe not, but if you'd ask whether the world is better off with or without the plethora of information that's available on the web, you can put my vote in the 'yes' column. As in 'yes, the world is better off'

It doesn't do passionfruit, but Picasa does a fine job of sorting the faces in your photo files. Actually, it's quite amazing! Once you ID a face, it'll go through your files and sort through faces with hats/shades/wigs/whatnot. Often times, when the face it selects is not the correct one, it's of a sister/brother/relative! No doubt the same technology will be or is available to figure out a passion fruit from a mango.

by **BobHelm** » January 22, 2011, 8:42 pm

parrot wrote:No doubt the same technology will be or is available to figure out a passion fruit from a mango.

You are correct parrot the technology is there, but difficult to see the commercial reasons for doing the fruit recognition - which was what I was trying to say in my first post..
Faces - security rules these days & so is very profitable to do, things like Picasa are spin off from the security programs.
Buildings - if done immediately (like with i-phone) then a whole host of local to that building advertising presents itself.
Plants & Fruits....well I guess if one of the big seed companies could see the potential maybe, or if there was a new gardening web set that swept the world - a sort of Facebook for gardeners then maybe...

Like you I think the internet presents huge possibilities, but like Statto I also can see the dangers - then so much more so did George Orwell. That is why I am very much against Government control & general censorship of the Internet.
I am often amazed when looking for some information that I stumble across so quite significant (but obscure) piece of information that would have been virtually impossible for me to have discovered as a private citizen 20 years ago.

Yes, if the use of a calculator means that an individual loses sight of 2+2 = 4 then it is a tool that is being badly taught how to use. But equally that individual can be taught how to use an excel spreadsheet that instantaneously recalculates the totals & creates a trend analysis that would be quite beyond all but a select few without electronic assistance.

Photo recognition.

Photo recognition.

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