In recent months, Facebook has spent large amounts
of money on the startup behind photo-sharing application Instagram, on face.com
who according to the press releases, a technology that has helped to provide the
best photo experience and on the "social discovery" startup Glancee
responsible for the mobile application for finding like-minded people.
Wonder where facebook is going with all this; Emphasis on mobile
platforms perhaps, Facial recognition technology, automating photo-tagging. Just a couple of things...
Face.com is a firm based in Tel Aviv, Israel, that has developed
technology used for facial recognition on photos loaded onto websites and
through mobile applications. The company has released two apps used on Facebook
called Photo Finder and Photo Tagger. Facebook says the startup firm specializes in software that lets
computers recognize people's faces in digital images. That there may be a worry
for some.
Implementing facial recognition technology for all users can mean
Facebook is able to collect a huge, photo-searchable database of its users. So what you say? Basically, Facebook is using
facial recognition technology to "suggest" tags to users who upload
photos. In other words, if I upload 12 photos of my friend Munchkin, Facebook
may "recognize" her face (thanks to other tagged photos of her on the
website) and "suggest" that I tag her in those 12 photos. This makes
the tagging process a little easier for me; after all, aren't I more likely to
tag Munchkin if all I have to do is click a button that says "yes, tag
away"?
Facebook has 800 million active members and each day, members upload over
200 million photos, Facebook currently hosting over 90 billion photos. Each
time you "tag" a photo, its facial recognition technology learns more
about what that person looks like. This technology is currently being used to
help people tag photos. Is it possible, however, this will ultimately culminate
in the ability to search for people using just a picture. And that will be the
end of privacy, as we know it.
Not difficult for someone to snap a picture of you in a crowd, and
discover everything about you on online.
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