The "Descriptive" Camera

[cyrus]

It describes the scene rather than simply photographing it.
http://mattrichardson.com/Descriptive-Camera/

(It also critiques the image!)

I think this may be a scam though - would required aritificial intelligence to identify and describe things.
Fun idea though.

[E. von Hoegh]

I think this could be valuable, since so many folks have no clue what they are looking at.

[Brian C. Miller]

The technology at the core of the Descriptive Camera is Amazon's Mechanical Turk API. It allows a developer to submit Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs) for workers on the internet to complete.

For those not familiar with it, the "Mechanical Turk" allows work to be distributed to real people, who then do something according to a set of instructions. There is no computer intelligence here. There is a person who receives the picture, and types in some descriptive text.

The concept comes from the mechanical chess "automaton" which featured a mechanical man who played a game of chess. It was actually operated by a person out of sight, like a dwarf or midget stuffed under the chess table.

[cyrus]

For those not familiar with it, the "Mechanical Turk" allows work to be distributed to real people, who then do something according to a set of instructions. There is no computer intelligence here. There is a person who receives the picture, and types in some descriptive text.

The concept comes from the mechanical chess "automaton" which featured a mechanical man who played a game of chess. It was actually operated by a person out of sight, like a dwarf or midget stuffed under the chess table.

That's what I get for not reading the description thoroughly.
It would have been cool (and yes, even scary) if it employed AI. But we'll get there, and probably sooner that we think. Doesn't google already have an image identification algorithm?

[Old-N-Feeble]

<snip>Doesn't google already have an image identification algorithm?

If they do... I'm going directly to my back yard to moon the satellites.

[Old-N-Feeble]

If that was true automated AI it would be very scarey.

[Brian C. Miller]

I know that there's a porn recognition algorithm which fits a mathematical curve based on the sag of a naked boob, but I think that Google's algorithm is based on the text on the same page as the picture.

Yes, your future robotic overlords AI will be distributed to workers in third-world countries...
Hmm, that's an interesting Mechanical Turk project. There's a yearly AI contest. How would the Mechanical Turk fare in that? It could all be farmed out as one-liners to the HI workers. Would the Mechanical Turk be regarded as intelligent? Hmm, an inquiring mind wants to know...

[cyrus]

I know that there's a porn recognition algorithm which fits a mathematical curve based on the sag of a naked boob, but I think that Google's algorithm is based on the text on the same page as the picture.

I was referring to this not-so-new Google feature that lets you "search by image" not text. You upload an image or point google to the URL of the image, and then Google does its magic and finds matching/similar images on the web.

(So, you can all now check to see where your photos are being used online by other people, without your permission.)

I think from there it would be a small step for google to then collect and analyze the text that surrounds the matching images it found online, to come up with some sort of description of your image. So if you load up a photo of an unkown monument , Google will find matching images of the monument online, and based on the fact that the majority of pages where those images appear no doubt also refer to the name and location of the monument (ie: "Eiffel Tower, Paris") it can conclude that your hitherto uknown photo can be described as a photo of the Eiffel Tower.

{PS Soon, using facial identification algorithms, you can also use this to find photos posted online of people who look like you do. I suspect that the the Google Search by Image function can or soon will be able to "read" any text visible in the image you use -- even in other languages -- to further help it locate matching images. }

[sun of sand]

big deal

this one is practically your friend
http://www.flickr.com/photos/michael...ek/3405816147/

[cyrus]

big deal

this one is practically your friend
http://www.flickr.com/photos/michael...ek/3405816147/

Now THAT is funny. Kinda like a mother-in-law back seat driver.