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Google Image Labeler
vandalman writes to tell us that Google is betting on the obsessive compulsive need for many users to see big numbers next to their name with a new beta service called Google Image Labeler. From the description: "You'll be randomly paired with a partner who's online and using the feature. Over a 90-second period, you and your partner will be shown the same set of images and asked to provide as many labels as possible to describe each image you see. When your label matches your partner's label, you'll earn some points and move on to the next image until time runs out. After time expires, you can explore the images you've seen and the websites where those images were found. And we'll show you the points you've earned throughout the session."
This is indeed a creative way to enhance the search results. Some of the pictures could be a little bit larger though.. Or some kind of a mouse-over which shows a larger picture.
Follow your Euro bills at EBT
its just taken me 4 minutes to accumulate ~1000 points, there are people who have accumulated 190000 points.
Thats playing the google game solidly for around 12 hours (less if they are good).
Congrats to those people!
As for myself, I found the image sizes too small, but I suppose we are basing the keywords on first impressions and are expected to come from the image search.
I found myself squinting to see what it was meant to be and wasting time, even if it was just 2x larger (scaled would do, no real need for more data) I would spend time there, its actually quite fun especially since you are aiming to get more than your random competitor.
liqbase
And those points will get me what?
I wonder, will they provide an option for only labeling porn images?
- These characters were randomly selected.
It looks like google just created a clone of the ESP Game.
This sig cannot be proven true.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~biglou/research.html has the papers and http://www.peekaboom.org/ is the game implementation.
I went to this site. I was paired with someone, then presented with my image. It was one I recognised, the 'broken image link' glyph. I tagged 'broken' and '404' among other things.
I didn't get one tag in common with my partner!
Doesn't Google already use Content Based Image Retrieval anyways for their image search? If so, why would they need to attach a bunch of metadata to each image?
I'm not sure why... Google's brilliance shines through again.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Technically google didn't rip of the ESP game. From this article http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060901-0943 09 It seems Google officially licensed the game.
It's like the $20,000 Pyramid gameshow, but without the $20,000.
Ah, precious Google points, the currency of the future.
Until then, it's like Amazon Mechanical Turk, except you work for free.
On a completely unrelated note, this would be a handy service for spammers to get their CAPTCHAs solved for free.
Just type "picture" for every image shown. It's foolproof if you have a savvy partner.
Here is a google video of Luis doing a google tech talk about human computation which I am wishing was linked from the google Image labeler home page itself.
liqbase
I think it's pretty ridiculous, but I do find myself competing for ranking in the system. It's human nature to be competitive, and I know from experience that I'm competitive in even some rather ridiculous circumstances.
It's actually a lot more fun (and social) than many computer games I've played, because it's not just about finding applicable labels, but labels that you think the other person will guess. Also looking at what kinds of things matched before gives you some feeling of who you're partnered with, and what words they will likely use.
To me this looks like a winner, for Google at least. And you know what? If this is entertainment, and it helps people find the information they need, I don't mind doing "work" for Google, not one bit. So far they've been very good to me, and as long as that keeps up, I can't feel bad for supporting them.
Remember when amazon.com paid $.03 to identify pictures through their mechanical turk program? Now Google wants us to do it for free.
How was Google Image Labeler developed?
Google Image Labeler is based in part on technology licensed from and developed at Carnegie Mellon University.
http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/help.html
Google is now harnessing a distributed operating system, you and me. They use games to get us to essentially program for them and reduce error by having multiple people do the same task and use what answers come out.
Very clever. Of course this was done by Amazon as well I think and I dont know what has come of that effort.
But it really means that they are using the processing power of people to avoid having to create artificial intelligence. And why not? Just use real intelligence from people and let them enjoy it by thinking it is a game!
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
This is quite definitely beta stuff. Maybe alpha. In particular, the "pass" system seems borked. I came across an image that was unidentifiable, and clicked "Pass." It said, "Waiting on your partner to pass." Long, dreary seconds ticked by, and then it said "Your partner wants to pass." ... ???
Why yes! I'd be glad to agree with my partner's request, except that I ALREADY SENT a pass request, and now the button is greyed out.
This happened several times. The first time, we were almost done anyway, so I let the timer expire. Guess what? If time expires while in this confused "we both want to pass but the system isn't working" state, then it doesn't actually complete the sequence (ie redirect you to the "completion" page). It just sits there, leaving you no choice but to manually return to the beginning page.
Also, people are dumb. I got a picture of a mountain road bordered by pine trees with a large cloud on the horizon. So over the course of about twenty seconds I suggested:
- Cloud
- Mountain
- Road
- Trees
- Pine Trees
- Thunderhead
- Cars
- Car
My partner still hadn't suggested any terms. So I suggested:
- nincompoop
- light weight
- My partner is an idiot
None of those matched, thankfully.
Google licensed the game. Luis von Ahn even gave a lecture at Google some time ago (which you can watch here)
And it's kinda flawed at the moment. Seems to hang a lot for one thing, but the main problem is that the images are so ridiculously tiny. Google aren't going to get useful tags that way - most of the points of agreement end up being words like "man" or "people" or "building". It's frustrating, because often it's clearly a specific building, maybe even with a sign saying EXACTLY what it is, except that the text is half a pixel high.
That said, the end-of-game summary is an illuminating (and terrifying) revelation of just how bad some people's spelling is.
Opera 7.54 (what I have installed on this puter) scales images nicely.
Ctrl + mouse wheel up/down = zoom in or zoom out.
I imagine the most recent 9.x still has that feature.
I can't vouch for this site: http://www.obermair.net/opera/operausben.htm but it was near the top of Google's results for a no-install version of Opera 9.01
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
1) Google Points
2) Ebay
3) ???
4) PROFIT!
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
It desperately needs larger pictures - at that scale it's very hard to see what they are.
www.sjbaker.org
I played about 10 times. 9 out of the 10 times, I got really lame people who mostly wanted to pass. 1 time, I got someone who was actually mentally engaged in the game and we got 900 points. It would be fun to do better, but if finding a non-retarded partner is typically such a pain, I'm not sure if it's worth it.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
.. come on .. you can't spell "constellation" ? pfft...
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
This is just Google struggling to become self-aware. No need for concern...
--
I am, therefore I should think
Thanks, Captain Obvious!
;)
In other news, Slashdot offers a submission facility for news stories to get content for the front page.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
Sure, that's why they're doing it isn't it?
I bet they build a huge DB of all this information and try and develop a neural net type system that's able to classify images. This way they populate the model with data for free. Machine processing of images to find pr0n for instance would be very big business and something that has been tried before with little success. It seems the 'how much pink is in the image' algorithm is not reliable - seriously I read that was tried once at some ISP.
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
"good afternoon and welcome to the Google Institute of Parapsychology..."
I don't know, Gmail's pretty good.
Nobody else has this sig.
Danny Sullivan reported that Luis von Ahn granted use of his ESP Game through licensing. http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060901-0943 09
- what is the definition of simultanagnosia?! I've been meaning to look it up!
This will provide google with many labellings.. but I worry about the quality.. Under time pressure, people playing this game will want to give replies they know are so simple anyone else would guess.. I saw a photo of the moon during play, and someone labelled it 'ground'-- true, but not that helpful.
Not only are the pics too small... (come on Google, with all those PHD's this should be a quick fix), ... but also the game needs some additional serious improvements such as:
1) There needs to be a "NEXT" button. For some images 1 minute and 30 seconds is too much time. I get the feeling a lot of people confuse "pass" with 'moving on to the next picture', so I think a lot of effort is wasted here as I imagine that "pass" means discard the data from both users and move on to next pic.
2) There should be a real time score matching as each person enters labels, this would really motivate players
3) Matching with random players doesn't work in most games because people want to play with others who are either at the same level of skill (in this case also speed - its boring as hell waiting 1 minute for your 8 year old (or 80 year old) partner to type in 1 label). Or allow people to do international competitions. I.E. Canada vs. USA or whatever.
4) I hope labels get spell checked before they are compared, otherwise there's a lot of misses
5) The label typing box should be smaller. For the first 3 or 4 times I tried it, I intuitively typed many labels separated by commas, only later to realize that all those sequencial words only counted as 1 label.
6) I have two internet connections with two different providers, on both PCs, the next image to come up took several seconds to show up... what's up with that Oh Google of infinite bandwidth?
This thing needs some serious improvements before it becomes addicting... right now its closer to 'lame' & if your partner is too slow... 'annoying'.
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
Uh, I don't know... PASS. Huh? Nothing happened. OK, label it "text". Huh? Nothing much is happening. Grrr...
WTF am I supposed to do? How do I go to the next image? What happens to my view if the other person does PASS, sits on his ass, labels something (match or not), or closes his web browser?
Does this even work with firefox at all?
Do we get porn?
Of course! Because people who think Google's game is a complete waste of time would definitely want to spend several hours of their precious time playing that game as badly as possible, in order to send a "message" about time-wasting to some anonymous person who they know nothing about and will never meet or even talk to. It all makes sense now, thanks for clearing that up.
Actually, I've got an alternate explanation: The server was malfunctioning under the load of too many people trying to play it at once.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Lowest common denominator, that's the quality of results they'll end up with. I might see a picture and label it "bird", where my partner, being an ornithologist, labels its exact scientific and common names. Until he enters "bird" we don't get a match.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
Holy crap, that is clever. Where do they think this stuff up? What a great way to get people to work for them for free.
I wish Google would hire me.
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
As a non-native English speaker, this game has allowed me to learn new words, and how people from other cultures see a same image. I see hands where others see labor, that kind of think.
If you haven't tried it, try it: you'll learn things about how people perceive pictures. And if your random partner has the same thinking schemes than you, you'll get points!
Google points worth nothing, but that's Google points. Yeah.
Instant Karma's gonna get you, Gonna knock you right on the head (John Lennon, 1970)
Um.... They're recording the labels, at least the ones both use. Then when someone looks for pictures with that label, say "Tom Cruise" or "Wedding", they'll know that that image is an answer... They make money by showing people things that are labeled -- usually the labels are in the text on the page, but images aren't text... Pretty clever, I think -- using a game to get people to help them index images. joe
After playing for a short while, you realise that there is a common set of words that everyone knows are the best first tries.
Lady, Girl, Man seem to be really common (even if not right) and colours too.
So it soon ends up that pictures are labelled by the words that help you win, rather than the most appropriate words for the image.
Happy moony
I had the same partner several times. I would think that if you had group of people trying he suggests, you would get a partner who is playing your "penis" strategy fairly often - and it would be really obvious right away if they were (first image, you type penis and get a match. If not, then stop playing that way because your partner isn't one of your friends.)
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
While I agree that there should be some bonus time for doing well, I can understand that they don't want to give you too much feedback. The way I see it, the point is to get a good cross section of what people would label an image, not find the 2 people that see each image the same way. If you've got people doing really well together, then they obviously see things the same, and it is probably time to pair you up with someone else.
My anecdotal experience suggests the same. I played several rounds, and in almost every case the winning term was the most general and least informative: "guy," "people," "cake," "cigarette" (for a scene in which one person just happened to be smoking). Hard to believe you could find useful data in a sea of terms like that, unless of course google actually saves all the more specific terms that we guess and uses those for their analysis, and the real time matching is primarily just used to keep users interested. Then again, that's probably not unlikely.
On a barely related topic, I had a somewhat startling experience. The first time I tried it, the third image was from one of my collaborator's websites, and it was a picture that I'm very familiar with: a shot of three guys in red parkas at the South Pole station standing under a crane installing the DASI telescope. I put in a bunch of accurate, very specific search terms. As one might expect, there were no matches. Eventually I was reduced to terms like "crane" and "ice," at which point my partner passed.
Now, I can guarantee that I provided a dozen search terms that ought to map to that image. But, since there are probably only a hundred people in the world who would know what the subject of that picture was, chances are my extremely accurate and useful descriptions will be swamped by terms like "guys" and "red." It's probably a long shot to assume "crane" and "Antarctica" make it into the top ten.
There seems to be a fundamental limit to what is possible with this sort of system: it can only be as good at identifying images as the average person. But, the average person is probably far less good at identifying images than someone who is actually searching for a specific image.
No one (worth mentioning) searches for a "guy" or a "molecule" or a "plant." They search for "Guy Lombardo" or "Sulfur Hexafluoride" or "Sago Palm."
Careful, now; that attitude makes you sound like a communist. It is the basic idea behind the Communist Manifesto: workers should reap the benefits of their own efforts, this requires that everyone owns the means of production he uses, and since a factory can't be operated by a single person alone, it should be owned communally by all the workers working there who can then share the profits between themselves instead of having a rich capitalist - megacorp in these times - pocket them.
Your desire to gain the benefit from your own work is, therefore, completely un-American. The capitalist way of doing things is that you do the work, the investors get the profits, and you get to compete with the Indians for who can survive with the lowest wage. Since India has a much lower cost of living, you're going to lose. Since your economy is bleeding money to India, the buying power of the people of your country is going to shrink, making it more neccessary for corporations to try to cut costs by hiring more Indians, and the situation is going to get worse and worse.
Sure makes you glad to live in a capitalist country, doesn't it ? And sure makes this post likely to be modded down by free-market fundamentalists who don't quite understand that communism ("people should own the means of production they use, and if a particular means needs more than one people to operate, then those people should own it communally") is not exclusive to free market ("everyone is free to produce what they want and trade with whoever they will").
Mod me down, but I'm still right.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
They're either upgrading their pigeons to Slashus-dottus-sapiens or they're outsourcing and putting these pigeons out of work. http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html
I'm not upset that you're criticizing capitalism, but that you're doing it out of ignorance:
..." line?), whether or not their efforts produced any benefit. Whether or not a given worker is completely useless.
It is the basic idea behind the Communist Manifesto: workers should reap the benefits of their own efforts,
No, communists believe that people should be paid "according to need" (remember that "from each according to ability
this requires that everyone owns the means of production he uses, and since a factory can't be operated by a single person alone, it should be owned communally by all the workers working there who can then share the profits between themselves instead of having a rich capitalist - megacorp in these times - pocket them.
Again, the whole "corporations get all the profits". Well, they also get all the losses. Do you want to wait to get paid until the corporation has paid back all of its expenses? Do you want to refund wages when it sinks without earning a profit? If you think your employer is going to get rich, a neat trick is to "buy shares". In a worker-owned factory, every worker's ENTIRE investments are in the factory. If ANYTHING goes wrong -- over which they have no control -- they lose their job and their savings. Nice deal, huh? This is why people don't own their workplaces. It makes much more sense for them to trade their share in their workplace and buy shares in a broad array of businesses so as to insure themselves against the financial risk.
Contrary to what you have said above, it is possible to have worker-owned factories under capitalism. They're actually heavily tax favored. Of all the enormous unions out there, any one of them could have pooled members funds and performed a hostile takeover (look it up) of any existing corporation. The reason they don't is, a) the financial risk above, and b) they all realize that what would happen is that for a few days they would merrily "pay themselves" a "fair wage" until they realized they could just pay the market rate for other people to do it.
Please, cure your ignorance.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.