Picasa Rolls Out 3.0 — Now With Facial Recognition

eldavojohn writes "If you use Picasa (Google's photo sharing site), they have upgraded to 3.0 and are purportedly offering facial recognition. That's right, why tag photos of your friends when the software will group similar faces together for you? There's a new list of features including repairing old photographs by touching them up and even writing on your images. As expected, not everyone is 'ok' with Google automatically recognizing you in pictures."

Comments

Re:picasas?

[MrCoke]

He downloaded it twice.

Ah good

[Anonymous Coward]

It can sort my porn.

App first, site afterwards.

[FooAtWFU]

Google's Picasa is a photo-manipulation application that you download to your computer and install so you can manipulate images. It includes the capability of uploading those files to PicasaWeb, which is actually the photo-sharing site...

Re:App first, site afterwards.

[E IS mC(Square)]

And it actually is great tool for managing (and non-destructive basic editing of) your pictures (unless you are a pro and in need of production house pro tools).

I have been Picasa user even before it was purchased by Google, and it has been pretty good for everything I need to do with my personal pictures (over 20000 now).

This is a big update - not only face recognition, but a lot of new tools are added or enhanced. Now you can even make/edit movies (basic, but good), which otherwise was view-only till 2.7.

A good video on new features: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rskC6c_5L1M

It recognizes *faces*

[GameboyRMH]

...but you can still sort by actor.

Google Earth integration.

[dotancohen]

I'm waiting for Google Earth integration, where it matches your face with images on street view and finds you on planet earth.

Re:Google Earth integration.

[Nullav]

And? As long as it's the same for everyone else, what's the problem? I can't imagine there being a single adult on the planet who hasn't said and done dozens of embarrassing things. The sooner that's all out of the way, the sooner we can ditch the Morality Police and get back to things that actually matter.

Can't Wait ....

[Luthair]

to find out if you tag someone mooning the camera, if the facial recognition will eventually 'recognize' a friends face.

Oh bullshit

[MikeRT]

From TFA:

This is also a larger issue for parents with small children. Other family members could tag photos of your child on the Internet. If a predator were to find pictures labeled with a location and a full name, he could gather enough information on your child to pose as a family friend in an attempt to lure your child from safety.

This is why you raise your child with a "whitelist" concept of who is a family friend. That's how my parents did it, and how most people did it when I was growing up. If I didn't know you, guess what? That meant you didn't come around enough to know you were a family friend, and no friend of my parents would have been upset if I didn't trust them and we'd never met. Why? Family friends understand that sort of thing from little kids who may have met them at most once or twice. Most of the problems should go away when they hit the teenage years because by that time, they can be reasonably expected to be able to figure these things out, and make their own way home.

I don't trust Google, but give it a rest with the sex offender crap. If your kids fall prey to this, it's your fault, not Google's fault because you should have taught them to only trust "friends of the family" that you introduced them to.

Re:Oh bullshit

[Chris Burke]

This is why you raise your child with a "whitelist" concept of who is a family friend. That's how my parents did it, and how most people did it when I was growing up.

Indeed, same here. It's the other half of that most basic of messages you give your child on being safe: "Don't talk to strangers". I remember turning away a trusted family friend from the door when I was like four. Of course he wasn't mad, I was a kid who didn't trust strangers like I should. When I was a little older, they also added another level, which was a "pass phrase" I couldn't ever tell anyone, and they'd use if there was some emergency so they had to send someone to pick me up for whatever reason.

I don't trust Google, but give it a rest with the sex offender crap. If your kids fall prey to this, it's your fault, not Google's fault because you should have taught them to only trust "friends of the family" that you introduced them to.

Well like most sexual predator hysteria, this is yet another case where they ignore the most important (though sad and disturbing) fact which is: The vast majority of sexual predators are "friends of the family" if not family themselves, and thus don't need Google or anything else to find their victims.

Re:Families

[E IS mC(Square)]

Er... I too thought this was a feature of Picasa (desktop), but the summary is really really bad and misleading - the feature is actually in Picasa Web.
You do not have to do anything if you already have pictures uploaded there - just enable the option in the new updated user interface (this option is not on by default), it may be a while your pictures are scanned (23 mins for me), and then you will be able to start playing with faces and tags.

Re:God I hope this works...

[woobieman29]

So, if you are "R2.0" and your son is "R3.0", why do you need the one decimal point level of precision? Why not "R2" and R3"?

PLEASE tell me that you aren't tracking the ejaculations that do not result in conception as the "dot releases"...