Blogging | Valleywag - valleywag.wordpress.com

Archive for the ‘Blogging’ Category

Image Recognition Problem Finally Solved: Let’s Pay People To Tag Photos

Posted by: clickry on: March 30, 2008

In: blog | blogger | Blogging | Crunchbase | Google | Michael Arrington | reference | silicon valley | startups | TagCow | tech | tips | valley wag | venture capital | YAHOO
Leave a Comment

Most people have thousands of digital photos sitting on their hard drive. And the vast majority of those photos aren’t tagged or searchable. Want to find the 300 pictures of your youngest son amongst 10,000 others? It’s not going to happen. Unless you’ve been diligently tagging and categorizing those photos over the years, and who does that?

The problem is obvious. The solution, not so much. A trail of failed startups have tried to tackle the problem with a fairly serious application of technology, including: Riya (now focused on ecommerce via Like.com), Ookles (never launched), and Polar Rose (in private beta for nearly a year), among others.

And now suddenly TagCow appears, which allows users to upload photos and have them tagged within a few minutes. The technology appears to be “magic,” meaning there’s no explanation of it.

If there’s a mountain in the photo, it’s tagged. A dog? yep. A yellow cup? Absolutely. It does people, too. Upload an image of a person and say who it is, and all other images you upload will be tagged with that person, too. The service also integrates with Flickr and will auto tag the photos you have on the service.

Thomas Hawk, the CEO of photo site Zooomr, tried the service and declared it “really, really cool,” although he wonders how it works.

The answer is, humans do it. I note that the TagCow site is careful not to say anything about the tagging process, and never use the word “automated” or anything else that would suggests computers are doing the work. Munjal Shah, the founder of Riya/Like, agreed, noting that it recognized a witch in Thomas’ photo – he says this just isn’t something a computer can do today.

I haven’t confirmed this yet. I’ve emailed the company for a description of how the service works but have yet to hear back. Until we do, I’m betting that humans are the taggers. Note that Google has effectively thrown in the towel and uses humans for this kind of work, too.

TagCow appears to be offering the service for free, so the cost side of the business may be a problem for them down the road. And the business is definitely a little sketchy. Worried about the privacy of your data? Just don’t click on their Privacy Policy or Terms of Use: “Privacy policy is TBD.” and “Legal stuff TBD.” Not exactly a way to build confidence.

minimize

CrunchBase Information

TagCow

Website:	www.tagcow.com
Founded:	March, 2008

TagCow, launched in March 2008, is a service that tags your photos with descriptive keywords. If there’s a mountain in the photo, it’s tagged. A dog? yep. A yellow cup? Absolutely. It does people, too. Upload an image of a person and say who it… Learn More

Information provided by CrunchBase

On Friday, ~~President~~ Communist Dictator Raul Castro said that he would begin allowing ordinary Cubans to use cellphones.

This is the first official announcement of the lifting of a major restriction in Cuba.

Cellphone use in Cuba is a luxury usually reserved for only those who are communist or work for the government. Up until now, Cubans have only been able to get cellphones by having foreigners sign the contracts in their names. And those that even had cellphones, were in the very small minority.

Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A., (ETECSA), Cuba’s telecommunications monopoly announced they would allow the general public to use the cellphone by agreeing to sign prepaid contracts using Cuban Pesos.

The Cuban government currently controls over 90% of the economy in which the average monthly salary is about 408 Cuban Pesos, a little bit less than $20.

Yes, $20 a month!!!

But, of course, a program in convertible Pesos will probably ensure that most Cubans will not be able to afford the cellphone service.

Baby steps at least. Though it’s doubtful Cuba will get out of it’s poverty anytime soon. Instead of giving your people cellphones, why don’t you try feeding them instead????

[Image via WENN.]