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Google Builds Biometric Models of Celebrity Faces

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the well-isn't-that-special dept.

theodp writes "Want the latest pics of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie? Sarah and Bristol Palin? Prince Harry? Britney Spears? So do the Enquiring minds at Google! On Thursday, the USPTO published Google's patent application for Automatically Mining Person Models of Celebrities for Visual Search Applications, in which the search giant describes how it used spectral analysis to construct a database of 'highly accurate biometric models' to allow it to recognize the faces of 30,000 celebrities wherever they might appear. Included in the patent drawings is Plot 104 of '141 images in Barack Obama's face model', which Google notes is much less 'polluted' than Plot 102 of '71 images in Britney Spears' face model.' Watch out, celebrity stalkers — there's a new kid in town!"

5 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. Two thoughts by MonsterTrimble · · Score: 2

    1) Privacy - it's over.
    2) When is this getting into Picasa?

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    I call it 'The Aristocrats'
    1. Re:Two thoughts by Albanach · · Score: 3, Informative

      2) When is this getting into Picasa?

      Picasa, the desktop app, already does facial recognition. You need to train it because most of us are not celebrities. I guess it would be trivial for Google to include their celeb database, so Picasa can automagivally tag you if you add a photo of yourself posing with a celebrity.

    2. Re:Two thoughts by Dachannien · · Score: 3, Funny

      And if they added this to Picasa, I'd finally have an easy way to sort my porn collection.

      Oh, so that's what they mean by facial recognition.

  2. That was a quick about face... by grapeape · · Score: 2

    How is this different from the facial recognition that has been done in things like iPhoto for years.

    Stranger is that just yesterday Google called facebooks "facial recognition" creepy and said it was something that google would likely not do and that some other company would have to "cross that line".

  3. How about something _useful_? by Alioth · · Score: 2

    Sigh. More celeb obsession.

    Google: why not develop something useful, like general purpose plant recognition, for example - so I can take a photo of a plant I want to identify and find information on? Or a building? Or other objects? Useful things, not yet more celebrity obsession...

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    Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows