Google Patents Software To Identify Real-World Objects In Videos 150
hypnosec writes "Google has been recently granted a patent that could not only improve online search, but also will possibly give the search engine giant an awful lot of information about the world. Google wants to scan and analyze the content within videos (YouTube videos, most probably) and look for objects in the real world, identify them, and make a catalogue out of those objects. The patent describes Google's technology of scanning a video, picking out landmarks, objects and context; and subsequent tagging and categorization."
Adds reader MojoKid: "The privacy implications of such an automated system are enormous. Facebook's own automatic facial recognition software was highly controversial when it debuted, and what Google has now patented puts Facebook to shame. The larger question, unaddressed in this patent, is whether we want our individual personal data to be tagged, filed, and logged without permission or choice."
Yes (and law on questions at summaries broken). (Score:5, Insightful)
The larger question, unaddressed in this patent, is whether we want our individual personal data to be tagged, filed, and logged without permission or choice."
How is a video uploaded to youtube 'individual personal data"? Sometimes it seems like we just want to complain about stuff.
I definitely want my (very few) youtube videos categorized, and most importantly, I want to be able to look for video contents.
By the way, the IO keynote demoed a search by content on pictures uploaded to google drive (the speaker typed 'pyramid' and the search returned 2 pictures with background pyramids), so this seems like an obvious improvement over that.
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The larger question, unaddressed in this patent, is whether we want our individual personal data to be tagged, filed, and logged without permission or choice."
How is a video uploaded to youtube 'individual personal data"? Sometimes it seems like we just want to complain about stuff.
True. A bit further and someone will question whether the objects (captured in the clip) themselves may or may not... well... object.
I mean... can you imagine the shame of a jiggling conical green jelly object [youtube.com] to be tagged "dildo"? (spoiler: no pr0n was linked in the course of this posting).
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the jiggling conical green object in the video you linked to actually had the parts from a vibrator at the base of it, and was specifically designed with tittilation in mind. (he went to a sex store to look for the most usable vibrators for his jelly, and tested various moulds some with vibratows inside them.
tagging that as dildo wouldnt really seem that inappropriate.
Re:Yes (and law on questions at summaries broken). (Score:5, Interesting)
How is a video uploaded to youtube 'individual personal data"?.
It can be non-private for the uploader, but private for other people in the video. You don't always know when you are in a video, and even if do you often cannot prevent it from being uploaded.
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Well, once they know that you're in the video they can notify you and you can ask them to blur you out. It's all a matter of what the law says, and if you don't like the laws, don't blame the company. Blame the politicians.
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I could already be in the background of a video with a million views and I wouldn't know it. If there were a way of identifying myself in YouTube videos, I'd be able to check them and get myself blurred/video removed if necessary.
Let's face it, the cat is already out of the bag in terms of the problem you state. There are already hundreds and hundreds of pictures of me on Facebook (not one of which I've uploaded) which I can do nothing about, and god knows how many more elsewhere on the net. The best I can
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Perhaps you should read-read tfs. It's not tagging people its pulling out objects and locations. No Los of privacy for anyone except potentially the video uploader - and that person was already giving up privacy by trusting a third party.
If someone else was in the uploaded video, it wouldn't matter under this tech.
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Perhaps I should have, but I was only responding to the short-sighted idea that it would be intrinsically impossible for private stuff to end up on YT
Re:Yes (and law on questions at summaries broken). (Score:5, Insightful)
The larger question, unaddressed in this patent, is whether we want our individual personal data to be tagged, filed, and logged without permission or choice."
How is a video uploaded to youtube 'individual personal data"?
How about the following scenario
You were present at a certain event, and someone took a vid of that event
Somehow you ended up in the vid
And the vid was uploaded to youtube, by someone other than you
Without this patent (or similar tech), someone happened to watch the vid on youtube might recognizes you
With this patent (and similar tech), they can now start categorizing every "familiar subject"
Whether or not your face end up in the list of "familiar subject" is another story, but the gist of the thing is, it's possible now to categorize everything
Re:Yes (and law on questions at summaries broken). (Score:4, Funny)
This is the Facebook face recognition. In the Google scenario it would now be able to tell you 84% of your photos have a cat in.
Phillip.
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How about the following scenario ...
You were present at a certain event, and someone took a vid of that event
Somehow you ended up in the vid
And the vid was uploaded to youtube, by someone other than you
Well, then you are already in youtube. The only difference now is that you are indexed. If it worries you, just look for yourself (assuming you can somehow) and if you show up ask for the video to be taken down, or for your image to be blurred, assuming you have any legal right to do that.
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And that's a rather huge difference. There's a tremendous difference between "you might be seen" and "every move you made is recorded, indexed and cross-referenced automatically".
If it doesn't worry you, you'd feel right
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And that's a rather huge difference. There's a tremendous difference between "you might be seen" and "every move you made is recorded, indexed and cross-referenced automatically".
Really? How exactly do my possible apparences in youtube become "every move you made is recorded, indexed and cross-referenced automatically".? There seem to be even more amazing technology somewhere.
If it doesn't worry you, you'd feel right at home in East Germany, which utilized a manual system to keep tabs on everyone. This is basically the same system, only automated.
You realize that the patent is about "Identify Real-World Objects In Videos", right?
And no, it doesn't worry me. Comparing this to East Germany is absurd and probably insulting to those who suffered its regime.
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Face recognition already exists, and presents privacy problems, sure.
This is about item/object recognition, which is technically a lot more impressive, but by itself does not pose privacy problems. Before, they could find you. Now, they can find you and index the fact that you were wearing a fedora in George Square. But if they're just indexing the hat and the location, and not the face, it's no problem (unless you've got a damn distinctive hat).
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Personally I never let myself be exposed to a camera or video lens. It steals your soul. Also... It adds about 10 lbs and I'm sensitive about that sort of thing. Nobody wants a fat soul.
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How is a video uploaded to youtube 'individual personal data"?
If I video tape my genitalia and upload it to Youtube it would be individual personal data. Indeed, the video game glitches and prototypes I've uploaded to Youtube are my personal data. It's mine. I created it. Now, that said: If You see a copy of the PS1 game "Unholy War" on the coffee table in the background of my hypothetical "Coming to God" video featuring my individual and personal data, I would be pleased if you would be able to click said PS1 game and buy it, to play in your emulator -- Hexagona
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Host it yourself. Why are you uploading it to Youtube then? And if the data is public, do you realize anyone can crawl through it, not just Google? The patent says nothing about monetizing it, and if the video is viewable, anyone can run such algorithms and get data off it, not just the hosting website.
Private data cannot be public. Keep it private. If you make something public, expect it to be stored for eternity even if you try to delete it, have all your pictures and videos crawled through by algorithm
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He may host it himself, but he can't make money from it using automated object recognition, because Google has just been awarded a patent for it. (Or to be more precise, at least he couldn't make money without paying exorbitant royalties to Google.)
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Really? Even accepting the premise that he can make money through object recognition on a video of his genitals, when has Google sued someone over a software patent except in retaliation? Does he plan to sue them over a slide to unlock patent?
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He may host it himself, but he can't make money from it using automated object recognition, because Google has just been awarded a patent for it.
no, he can't make money from it using automated object recognition be cause he doesn't have the software to do that.
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Once you publish it, it's no longer your personal data. It might be yours, but it's public.
Expectation of Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure that you have any expectation of privacy in this case. You're putting videos on the internet at your own will or you are in a public setting where you are being filmed. I'm not sure if things like parties are considered to be private affairs or public outings or whatever and if you can expect that your actions will be kept secret from the world or not. Either way, I don't think that you can expect much. But, I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know. However, I wouldn't expect that any part of my life that I freely share with the world in anyway should be kept private unless it was agreed to beforehand.
Also, with regards to Google in general, I think your permission is granted when you use Google services. When this goes live, and you don't want to participate, you can delete your youtube account and host it somewhere else. Maybe a place with more privacy control. For people who are caught in it because their friend posted a video, well, I think that kind of pertains to my babbling in the first paragraph.
Re:Expectation of Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
or you are in a public setting where you are being filmed.
This expectation of privacy nonsense needs to be thrown out. It was thought up before we had the technology capable of mass surveillance, and now it's very convenient for the government and companies. The government can simply work with companies to get the info (whatever government isn't allowed to do can simply be passed off to companies). I don't expect that my actions be secret, but I do expect that I shouldn't need to walk around with a mask everywhere I go just because some idiots can't differentiate between mass surveillance and some bystander spotting you while walking down the street.
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Re:Expectation of Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
The government can simply work with companies to get the info (whatever government isn't allowed to do can simply be passed off to companies). I don't expect that my actions be secret, but I do expect that I shouldn't need to walk around with a mask everywhere I go just because some idiots can't differentiate between mass surveillance and some bystander spotting you while walking down the street.
I agree with you 100% about the mass surveillance thing. I have no idea why people are so eager to portray it as a completely 100% harmless condition that could never, ever be used against them. Apparently they've never heard the saying by Cardinal Richelieu: "give me six lines penned by the most honest hand, and I will find something in them which will hang him". Now imagine that applied not only to whatever you write, but to everything you say, everything you do, everywhere you go, stored indefinitely, in a nation with so many tens of thousands of laws it's nearly impossible to never break at least one of them...
If you want to embrace a no-privacy world, I sure hope that every human being on earth, including criminals, including tyrants, thinks you're a great person and never wants to harm you, because that sure is easier to do when they know a lot about you.
Regarding the government cooperating with companies to get around restrictions placed on government, the restrictions against government merely need to be updated to include "nor shall this be done by proxy". That would make it consistent with every law telling real people what they may not do. For a couple of hypothetical examples, you are not allowed to rob someone, nor are you allowed to hire a thug to rob someone; in both cases you would be prosecuted. Hiring a hit-man won't keep you from being prosecuted for murder even though you didn't perform the act personally. Restrictions on government need to close this "by proxy" loophole. Then they will be harmonized with the kind of laws each of us are expected to obey.
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fuck privacy. if you're doing something you think will land you in trouble if revealed, you should not be doing it.
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easily solved by more comprehensive surveillance.
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I was expecting this (Score:1)
After Andrew Ng's experiment with creating an unsupervised neural net of 16,000 computer cores at Google, it comes natural they have an interest in this field of photo/video tagging and start outputting some patents. There is a similar technology at (http://www.msravs.com/audiosearch_demo/) for transcribing speech to text and making archives of videos searchable by word (kind of like Google Books does for print).
Soon we will have all our huge archives of video, print and images analysed and searchable. Imag
If you're worried about this... (Score:2)
... you'd better not go outside. Somebody might see you! Better to stay in with the curtains drawn, and keep away from the windows just in case.
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Why don't you provide a list where you were last time you went out?
I need to know all persons you talked to, all addresses you visited, the routes you took, and how long you stayed in each place.
Since you're not worried, I'm sure you'll provide this information ASAP.
Thanks.
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It's none of your damn business. If you happened to be there to see me, then fine.
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So what you're saying is that it's OK that the technology may be deployed within a decade to answer AC's question without your getting a say in the matter, but when he (more honestly) asks you directly then it's not his "damn business"?
I like to apply the "your daughter in the bathroom" test. If you're OK with any information being processed for whatever purpose as long as it reaches public space, then you're OK with my using an infrared/whatever camera and sensitive microphone from the street to record and
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If you're in a private space - like your house, for example - then you have an expectation of privacy.
If you're standing outside in the street, out in public, you do not have an expectation of privacy.
It's really a pretty simple concept to grasp. I know right-wing Americans do have trouble with reading comprehension, but I don't know how I can make it any plainer.
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1) "You have an expectation of" are cowardly weasel words for "I think you should have".
2) How are "in public" and "private space" defined? Use definitions which come down to something other than "space where you do not / do have an expectation of privacy".
3) Most material ends up being published from what I think you'd call "private space" - even following someone around inevitably shows them on "private" grounds.
4) What is so special about some kinds of space that you should not have any privacy protectio
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Yes and the courts in East Germany also defined where you have a "reasonable expectation" of privacy.
I'm looking for a moral argument, not a layman's restatement of the law.
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And if I follow you 24/7 and record everything you do, is that fine too? Because that's what this is about: technology is changing the situation from me seeing you by accident to me being able to get an automated report of your actions after the fact with a simple Google query.
It used to be impossible to keep everyone under constant surveillance, even police states had to prioritize. Thus you had de facto privacy even in publ
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And if I follow you 24/7 and record everything you do, is that fine too?
You can if you want. You're not getting inside my house, though. I suspect you'd get bored of it pretty quickly. I can give you some GPS co-ordinates to start you off, if you're *that* interested.
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I suggest you seek professional help.
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I would. An automated system never will. That's kinda the point here: as technology advances, I can keep you under surveillance whether or not this I anticipate to ever have any use of this information, because it'll cost me basically nothing. I can keep everyone under surveillance all the time without wasting my time and freezing my balls off sitting in bushes outside your house, or paying anyone else to do so or to analyze the results. I can just type a Goo
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The difficulty being, of course, that there's really nothing to see. One thing that I've discovered over time is that it's generally best to avoid doing illegal things out in public where people can see you.
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Alternative solution: Get society to stop being so puritanical that blackmail is possible for otherwise innocuous and harmless actions. This also has a bonus effect of eliminating blackmail as a lever for corruption. Additional bonus: when applied to members of congress, eliminates bribery as a method for corruption. In fact, most if not all corruption requires secrecy.
That is, instead of advocating for privacy, advocate for complete and extreme transparency.
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Why don't you provide a list where you were last time you went out?
I need to know all persons you talked to, all addresses you visited, the routes you took, and how long you stayed in each place.
Since you're not worried, I'm sure you'll provide this information ASAP.
Thanks.
No problem: The last time I went out was to the grocery. I used the self checkout and talked to no one. I took the fastest route as proposed by my GPS, I stayed there for 33 minutes according to my router's traffic log. The list of people's addresses I visited is empty -- this is Slashdot you fool.
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Eh? If you upload a Youtube video then you are providing this list. The Google algorithm is not gleaning any extra information you can't get by watching the video, only cataloguing it better. For instance if you have video of you having lunch under the Eiffel Tower it will automatically be tagged "Paris".
My guess is that it will be used to pre-fill a "Suggested tags" box.
Phillip.
Alzheimer's (Score:2)
What I want is a little webcam that I can put on my shoulder, and which records everything (without uploading it anywhere). Then, when I want to know where my keys are, it'll show me the last recorded images that have keys in them.
privacy implication FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
What exactly are the new privacy implications of this system? Governments in western democracies are deploying facial recognition systems at street corners and license plate recognition systems to track vehicle movement, what does this bring that makes things significantly worse?
That last link is particularly egregious. It points to Chromebooks as a device that is dependent completely on Google services. How about also mentioning devices that already do the same, except that they have about a 100 times more users - iPhones and iPads. And even Windows devices are going the same way. What on earth does with ave to do with this patent, and how about mentioning that this isn't specific to Google. I am tired of this FUD implication that Google can steal all your data while others can't? What Google could do theoretically all other 'cloud' providers could do too, theoretically. How about comparing their actual records? Has Google turned on face recognition without your consent? Has Google changed your email contacts and personal email address on your profile and wiped your phone contacts? Do you really think Apple can't access the same stuff in theory from your iPhone the way Google can from their devices? Or the Facebook app that installs with just about every permission available?
And again, what does any of it have to do with this patent. If you upload a video to youtube for the whole world to see, is it really a big deal that Google knows that you use a Macbook?
the article says "Google's own vision for the future of computing is a Chromebook/Chromebox that's completely dependent on their own services for everything". Really? What's Apple's vision of computing? Amazon - ever used a Kindle Fire? In fact, Google sells very few Chromebooks, and most Google affiliated devices sold are Google Android devices, which offer far more freedom. You can use it with non Google accounts. You can disable and remove Google services, and Google allows apps that compete with Google services (Apple bans those - reproduce the functionality of an Apple service or app and you get banned). Amazon is equally restricted if you've ever used a Kindle Fire.
And there are several unlocked Android phones and devices where you can install Google free versions of Android like Cyanogen, and do whatever the hell you want without the privacy implications. How about raising awareness of those for people who are really concerned about privacy instead of spreading all this 'Google will steal all ur dataz oh noez' FUD. That ship bolted, the horse has sailed etc. ALL current device makers do that or are moving towards that model. Go to all the trouble of using and informing about Linux or De-Googled Android devices, or shut up and talk about real disasters when they happen like Facebook's several privacy booboos or the Google Wave fiasco. Not this FUD.
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The question is not whether this is a useful technology. The real question is whether that what /can/ be done /should/ be done. The technology is without any feeling; it is us who bring feelings into play when we use technology.
Access to information, be it local or global, is not inherently bad. We can use it to learn and promote. However, not everyone has the same intentions and that is where it gets problematic.
If we make all information readily available in a way that we all become transparent, then not
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How about also mentioning devices that already do the same, except that they have about a 100 times more users - iPhones and iPads. And even Windows devices are going the same way. I am tired of this FUD implication that Google can steal all your data while others can't? What Google could do theoretically all other 'cloud' providers could do too, theoretically. How about comparing their actual records?
I think that Google might be in a slightly different position since Amazon and Apple already get money from you from selling their devices and services. Google and Facebook on the other hand, will only get money by selling us (and our data) as a target for their real customers, the advertisers.
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Amazon sold the Kindle Fire at zero profit or a small loss according to most accounts, they get their money from you purchasing apps and content from Amazon, they want to know your habits just as much as Google does. Also remember, Google owns Motorola Mobility now, they are a hardware company too.
Also there is an unfair underlying implication in all this that just because Google is an advertising company it makes it more likely that they will violate their policies than other companies. That's not necessar
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Yeah that was my first thought, how can they patent something that the research community has been doing for years?
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You can patent anything these days. It's slightly less worrying to see Google patenting stuff because they have only used patents defensively. I am sure these days Google patents absolutely anything they can think of.
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Sigh. They're not patenting the recognition, they're patenting a specific method of doing so. You need the read the claims.
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they're patenting a specific method of doing so.
There is nothing specific about the methods they're patenting. I just worked on a very similar project [cmu.edu], and after reading the patent, I see very little separating what they patented from what we did. Indeed we don't use dimensionality reduction the way they suggest (although we did use it for a while), and we don't provide specific names for the objects we discover (though we have talked about doing so via crowdsourcing). Indeed our work is more recent than the patent filing, but people have been attempt
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You do realize that at the bottom of your project's page you list your sponsors, and they include Google. Did you carefully read the terms of the grant? It wouldn't surprise me if they own some kinds of rights to your work.
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That's the idea behind patents. They aren't kept secret, so you can be free to publish anything that you want about them - but they are still owned by the rightsholder. The real question you could ask your advisor is if you are free to build a product or a business around this research, or if he is free to do so. If not, then it's likely the patent rights are owned by someone who is not your advisor.
Assuming it's Google, your advisor may still be free to monetize them. Whether or not Google attempts to
Oh! So Google invented neural network algorithms? (Score:1)
Rad.
OK, my beef is that it sounded to me that Image Recognition on a certain application got its own patent...
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That is application using image recognition..
Image recognition towards a certain applicaiton... ...
bah
sleep is for the weak.
A more likely use (Score:3)
Is landmark identification within Google Street View
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"virtual light" by gibson.
that's where project glass is headed (meant to be). it's pretty obvious too.
but if the general IDEA of it gets patented.. that's fucked up. because it's an obvious idea, tying it doing processing on a server should not be patent worthy. some individual algorithms in the machine vision part maybe would be patent worthy..
Who would be the lesser of two evils? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is bound to happen. The question is:
Would you prefer Google to patent this, or someone like Apple?
Personally I would trust Google to consider user rights a little bit more, but the exploitation of such a system is damn scary.
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Personally I would trust Google to consider user rights a little bit more, but the exploitation of such a system is damn scary.
I'd be interested to hear your reasoning behind that.
Google still have WiFi data that they collected when creating street view. Google and privacy aren't too things that go too well together, the overall impression I have is that they don't care about it at all.
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Indeed, they might not care at all, but they act like they may give an iota of a crap.
The debacle with Google collecting Publicly Open Unencrypted [blogspot.com] WiFi Communications was controversial, and even intentional *gasp* [wired.com], yet:
But, the commission said, Google did not engage in illegal wiretapping because the data was flowing, unencrypted, over open radio waves.
I concede this means little regarding moral privacy, I mean they did it anyway, right?!
It was a wake-up call to people who are too ignorant or lazy to secure their networks. People need to learn, good for Them!
It falls in line with a campaign to raise awareness about what information you put [pleaserobme.com]
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Personally I would trust Google to consider user rights a little bit more, but the exploitation of such a system is damn scary.
So you'd rather trust a company who's business model is to sell information collected from and about you to who ever is willing to pay than a company with a reparation to not share any collected information about anything to anyone, no matter what the price?
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... than a company with a reparation to not share any collected information about anything to anyone, no matter what the price?
Apple? You know they operate (as a minority income) exactly the same business model as Google right? They're just not as successful at it, and far more successful with their other revenue streams.
http://advertising.apple.com/ [apple.com]
By the same token, Google also have the Apple business model (sell devices and services for cash to customers), but they're just not as good as that bit as Apple.
All companies are basically the same...
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actually i think your post would be an anti-godwin since
a) it wasn't anyone in the forum that you compared to hitler,
and
b) hitler came out the better in the comparison
All your privacy belong to us! (Score:5, Insightful)
Take this girl: She had a photo snapped of her at a friend's BBQ. They uploaded it to Flikr without thinking, and next thing she knows she's on advertising billboards: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sesh00/515961023/ [flickr.com] http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1047772/virgin-mobile-sued-virgin [theinquirer.net]
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> you will have friends that are and upload information about you without thinking about it
Do not have friends - problem solved
Update on Allison Chang case (Score:2)
http://blog.internetcases.com/2009/01/22/no-personal-jurisdiction-over-australian-defendant-in-flickr-right-of-publicity-case/
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O Tempora o Mores (Score:1)
They'll get it (Score:2)
People should host their own content or find a company not interested in takin gall their data to sell advertisements and quit handing their life to google.
Surrender my privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, I really don't care what Google knows about me. I don't care if they know every single website I visit, how many steps it takes me to get to a McDonalds, or what color my toothbrush is.
If their targeted advertising means I'll never have to see another ad for tampons and lipstick, or a bar in Austria (a place where I don't live), then I'm happy.
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Why wouldn't you care? Do you also not care if the government has access to all that information? If the government lacks information, and they know a privacy company has it, I'd say it's highly likely that they'll go after that information (and they'll probably get it, too).
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That's a fair point. I do trust my government (for the moment), and if I've committed some crime then I think they should be entitled to use this against me.
Of course, some governments are nicer than others...
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I do trust my government
Well, I certainly don't. They seem to enjoy molesting people at airports and spying on people's communications. Anyone they don't like is labeled a terrorist. The people who get into the government are not and never have been perfect beings; trusting them with such ridiculous amounts of power is foolhardy.
if I've committed some crime
I'm sure you have. If you're in the US, for instance, there are so many laws that it's nearly impossible to know whether or not you have.
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Fair enough. To each his own, I always say.
I, on the other hand, do care, and I expect my opinion to be just a valid as yours.
Then, if we agree on that, would you also agree that such a system should be strictly opt-in, so that those--like you--that do not care about their privacy may take advantage of whatever added value Google offers with this service?
So, why hasn't this been the case so far with other similar technologies that have the potential to threaten personal privacy--especially from Google?
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Distributed Camera (Score:2)
There's a Google Tech-Talk that got posted a few days ago, which is not specifically about this patent, but may shed some light on what they have in mind: The Distributed Camera: Modeling the World from Online Photos [youtube.com]
Turns out they were wrong (Score:3)
the Revolution will NOT be televised, or it's never gonna get off the fucking ground....
too easy to identify the participants now....
This has already been done (Score:2)
A patent search will not turn up this patent. This particular patent holder can retroactively exercise their patent rights. They are the only patent hold that can do this.
This has been done! (Score:1)
I Predict (Score:2)
A deserved patent? (Score:2)
Although I'm skeptical of software patents, if there are going to be software patents, then this would be one that deserves it.
I mean, this actually took some work and innovation. It's not a simple DrawRect (or whatever) with a rounded corner radius set, which any high schooler in a programming class could do.
Goggles (Score:2)
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Is IBM's Watson prior art for claim 22? (Score:2)
Especially United States Patent 8250019 (System and method for interactive knowledge visuali
I think it is great (Score:1)
If you post a video to youtube, then you want it to be public. If you are filmed and put onto youtube, you were in public or gave permission to be filmed in private. If this is not the case, then it will be easier for you to locate the violations and request their removal. This is a benefit to privacy. I like the idea and would like to see this service in action. I support youtube with this invovation and request that those who perfer privacy continue to stay away from youtube and public spaces.
Re:Big Brother Style Mind Reading (Score:5, Funny)
Face Recognization (Score:1)
Having have the time to read TFA yet, but just wondering, how does this patent differ from the Face Recognization routine?
Or maybe this patent will enable the software to pick up one particular face, out of the thousands, in the video?
Re:Face Recognization (Score:5, Funny)
Having have the time to read TFA yet, but just wondering, how does this patent differ from the Face Recognization routine?
Unlike the Face Recognization patent, this one has been written with the assistance of a spell checker.
Re: (Score:3)
Sit down on this cot, we're going to give you a shot which will make you much more relaxed. And then
we are going to show you to your new room. Sorry, it has a very small window and you won't get out much,
but you will be safe from THEM.
You must have missed the memo. The drugs are too expensive and we don't have enough space for private rooms.
Here's some tinfoil. Make a nice hat.
Re: (Score:2)
Hopefully (I've not checked) they're patenting a method of doing so, not just the woolly concept of "do it". That's the actual idea of patents, and why the Apple design patents are so daft. Anyone can say "I'm patenting thin rectangular devices" without having any designs that actually do so. But if I try to patent "a device for heating water to boiling point", I'd be expected to actually include the specific design for my kettle.
If Google have genuinely come up with a new, reliable way of doing something t