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Microsoft Tries To Guess Relatives With "Twins or Not"

mikejuk writes: Hot on the heels of their popular "How Old Do I Look" website, Microsoft has released a tool called "Twins or Not." Powered by Microsoft’s Project Oxford Face API, the site lets people upload a pair of photos to the web and get back a similarity score. In a blog post Mat Velloso, Senior Software Development Engineer at the Technical Evangelism Development group at Microsoft, talks about how he put the program together in just four hours.

23 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What is this has got to do with MS's core busin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It's probably related to Xbox. Some day, Kinect will scan you and say "Hey, AC, want to play age-appropriate game with your young sister who I see is sitting next to you?" or "Hey, AC, your parents say you can't watch this movie without an older relative present."

  2. Re:What is this has got to do with MS's core busin by viperidaenz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because they're developing facial recognition algorithms, and launching fun websites is a way to get a variety of real-world inputs and increase their test data.

  3. Re:What is this has got to do with MS's core busin by ModernGeek · · Score: 2

    It will be a good headline whenever the the inevitable celebrity love-child finds his or her father through this tool.

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  4. Caitlyn Jenner & Jessica Lange Twin Score: 93% by theodp · · Score: 3, Funny
  5. Re:What's next? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Nah, probably match the selfie to the dick-pic.

  6. Re:What is this has got to do with MS's core busin by Karganeth · · Score: 1

    well they say they dont keep the photos, and they're useless to train any algorithm because you dont input whether you are related or not.

  7. here is the missing link from the summary by Noah+Haders · · Score: 2

    hot old do I look website: http://how-old.net/
    twins or not website: http://twinsornot.net/

    i didn't try the second one, but I tried the how old and it was pretty neat. MS has some smart people at microsoft research, and the PHBs seem to be doing the right thing and giving these people latitude to do their own thing their own way.

  8. Slashdotted, now how busy is that site Mat? by Ropati · · Score: 4, Informative

    Mat notes how Azure is handling the load after the first few hours:

    http://www.matvelloso.com/2015...

    Mat,

    How is the load, now that you've been Slashdotted?

    Is this still within a personal budget?

    How about a report on how much this would cost the average Joe if he put it in the cloud and it went viral? Do you have a cost graph to go with the rest of the Azure Web App?

    If you are going to chortle about the ease of Azure, perhaps you should be more specific about the pricing. I love the ease, but I fear the the cost.

    Ropati

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    1. Re:Slashdotted, now how busy is that site Mat? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      According to the article you linked, "the S3 pricing tier the server is sitting comfortably with 13% CPU usage and just one instance". He also turned on auto-scale which will deploy more instances if needed (with Azure, auto-scale is turned off by default).

      According to the Microsoft Azure rate card, an S3 instance is $0.2035/hr which is approximately ~$152 per month.

      Assuming the application scales linearly (it appears to), 230,000 = 13% CPU (from the article you linked), the application is CPU-bound, and a server maxes out at 90%, it will cost him approximately $152 per 1.5 million users. Is this within a personal budget? Definitely.

  9. Re:What is this has got to do with MS's core busin by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 2

    This could lead to an era where your age on your registered account is used for censorship, rather than a parent getting the ability to leave TV-MA banned after a kid turns 18... remember kids, set a password you don't know and lock your TV on "receives everything" before your parent gets to take it out of the box.

  10. Re:How far Slashdot has fallen... by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 1

    Microsoft Press Release converted into Slashdot story has been around here for over two decades....

  11. Re:What is this has got to do with MS's core busin by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

    Turns out this was some guy at Microsoft playing around, only spending 4 hours developing, testing a releasing.
    Probably a good investment of 4 hours considering the publicity they'll get.

  12. Fascinating. by sootman · · Score: 1

    So anyway, why is it that when I click the Xs on the boxes in the right column, they're back next time I come to the homepage? Since the polls aren't there anymore, there's really nothing I need to have in that column at all.

    Yeah, I know, off topic, but where else can I ask?

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  13. Re:What is this has got to do with MS's core busin by Rockoon · · Score: 1

    and they're useless to train any algorithm because you dont input whether you are related or not.

    ..you appear to think that modern AI algorithms need labeled data...

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  14. Triplets !! by invictusvoyd · · Score: 3, Funny

    I gots positive match for an image of a giant turd and the Microsoft logo . It also matched Bono from U2.

  15. Such nice trojans by ruir · · Score: 1

    for NSA to link your gmail ID to your face worldwide. I sincerely hope "terrorists" play those games.

  16. Re:What is this has got to do with MS's core busin by cavreader · · Score: 1

    It may be a fun site but they are also show casing their new Oxford API which does tie in to their business model.

  17. Does not support genitals by Mike+Sheen · · Score: 2

    I tried, and it only accepts faces. Don't ask.

  18. 4 hours ... bullshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If the code is not tested, it is not finished.

  19. Headline should read 'How to adapt demo code' by jfbilodeau · · Score: 1

    The headline should read that a developer downloaded an SDK, tweaked a demo in the SDK, and uploaded it to the web. Then wrote an TFA about out.

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  20. Re:Not for the NSA by umghhh · · Score: 2

    Probably true. For NSA it would be more efficient to rip off DBs of driving license issuing authorities around the world.

  21. More interesting by StikyPad · · Score: 1

    It would be more interesting if it matched a database of photos to find doppelgangers... although there may be identity theft liabilities.

  22. Re:What is this has got to do with MS's core busin by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 1

    Yep, somebody has to be root at the firewall... I would love it if ISPs would configure a firewall at their side of the connection.... something along the lines of don't even send me anything nodes I don't ever want to see again. Would nip the DDOS problems out.