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Google Cloud Vision API changes the way applications understand images

googlecloudplatform.blogspot.com

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Re: Google Cloud Vision API changes the way applications understand images

#61

Post by mdasen »

akshayB wrote: post #16
nicklo wrote: post #5

I wonder what this means for computer vision startups like http://clarifai.com ? Its hard to compete with Google on a task like image classification when Google has immense computational resources, tons of data, and hoards of top researchers.

Forget new services, even a small change in their existing products by Google can destroy lot of companies. Everyone remembers how they ruined email marketing by caching gmail images.

From what I know, it's still possible to track Gmail opens and the change Google made in fact made it easier by making image loading default to on.

When you open an email with images, Google will proxy the request for the tracking image and then cache it. If each user has a unique tracking image, you know when it was opened. Google is not caching the images before the open so you do know that it was opened.

What you possibly lose is repeat opens which might end up with the cached image.

That seems like a loss, but with this change, Google turned on images by default. So you get loads of Gmail users loading images by default rather than the old way where many more people would be loading your message with images off.

MailChimp has a little write-up about it: https://blog.mailchimp.com/how-gmails-image-caching-affects-...

tl;dr: Google's change didn't stop marketers from knowing you opened the email, but did potentially block cookie sending, IP address information, referrer information, etc.

Re: Google Cloud Vision API changes the way applications understand images

#62

Post by jfoster »

nate_martin wrote: post #60
[deleted] wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

You're betting on a a startup's product to stick around longer than a tech giant's?

I don't think it's right to consider all tech giant products equally. You have to consider things like whether the product or service is a significant source of revenue relative to the company's overall business.

For example, Google probably could've made Reader profitable, but it was not on track to be used by a billion people. Relative to Google's overall business, it was uninteresting to them. It might've been a great startup, though.

Re: Google Cloud Vision API changes the way applications understand images

#63

Post by voltagex_ »

akshayB wrote: post #16
nicklo wrote: post #5

I wonder what this means for computer vision startups like http://clarifai.com ? Its hard to compete with Google on a task like image classification when Google has immense computational resources, tons of data, and hoards of top researchers.

Forget new services, even a small change in their existing products by Google can destroy lot of companies. Everyone remembers how they ruined email marketing by caching gmail images.

Even a change in the pricing of say, the Google Places API (previously part of Maps, now billed differently) can cause drastic effects. I wonder if anyone at Google realise how much power they wield.

Re: Google Cloud Vision API changes the way applications understand images

#64

Post by stickfigure »

nicklo wrote: post #5

I wonder what this means for computer vision startups like http://clarifai.com ? Its hard to compete with Google on a task like image classification when Google has immense computational resources, tons of data, and hoards of top researchers.

Google has a long history of failing to productize otherwise brilliant technology. Google Analytics is free and yet Mixpanel, Kissmetrics, Intercom, and a whole raft of analytics startups appear to be thriving by solving specific problems. AI and Computer Vision is a big space.

Re: Google Cloud Vision API changes the way applications understand images

#65

Post by adriancooney »

stickfigure wrote: post #64
nicklo wrote: post #5

I wonder what this means for computer vision startups like http://clarifai.com ? Its hard to compete with Google on a task like image classification when Google has immense computational resources, tons of data, and hoards of top researchers.

Google has a long history of failing to productize otherwise brilliant technology. Google Analytics is free and yet Mixpanel, Kissmetrics, Intercom, and a whole raft of analytics startups appear to be thriving by solving specific problems. AI and Computer Vision is a big space.

I think you're forgetting the reason why Google Analytics is free. It's not to generate profit, it's to collect data.

Re: Google Cloud Vision API changes the way applications understand images

#66

Post by danso »

abtinf wrote: post #10

It's exciting to see more of these services come to market. IBM Watson has a suite of vision APIs available that have some similar features. For example, the demo at http://vision.alchemy.ai/#demo has example images that demonstrate facial detection and identification, label extraction, object identification, and so on. Another demo at http://visual-insights-demo.mybluemix.net/ uses the Visual Insights [1] API to ide…

Thank you for posting this. I had seen Watson's stuff before whenever it was originally released, but have recently stumbled upon it again and am just gobsmacked at the APIs available, such as speech/text translation. I don't want to insinuate that you could be doing a better job at evangelizing ;)...but the more you just remind people of Watson, the more happiness you'll bring to a good number of developers purely through introducing them to what they might have ignored because they didn't think to look at IBM. I mean I see far more buzz around WolframAlpha stuff and yet not much of what they've offered seems as accessible or purely useful as what Watson purports to have.

(I would also say the exact same thing for Microsoft and it's Project Oxford APIs, whoever here is working as its evangelist)

Re: Google Cloud Vision API changes the way applications understand images

#67

Post by galtwho »

adriancooney wrote: post #65
stickfigure wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has a long history of failing to productize otherwise brilliant technology. Google Analytics is free and yet Mixpanel, Kissmetrics, Intercom, and a whole raft of analytics startups appear to be thriving by solving specific problems. AI and Computer Vision is a big space.

I think you're forgetting the reason why Google Analytics is free. It's not to generate profit, it's to collect data.

His point still stands. With data as the focus, GA should be built in such a way that users don't see the need tyo use Mixpanel & others.

But that is not the case. Which suggest Google isn't that good at productivizing stuff.

Re: Google Cloud Vision API changes the way applications understand images

#69

Post by IanCal »

tyrust wrote: post #35
anindyabd wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no doubt that neither Google nor HP made those error maliciously. I was just curious as to whether or not it's possible to incorporate some sort of... tact?... into these recognition algorithms to avoid labeling people (or other things) offensively. Is it just a matter of a larger training set? It would be hard to cover all sorts of people in all sorts of poses, with all sorts of lighting conditions, etc.

It's not about tact, it's just the algorithm doing its best. In order for the algorithm to be capable of "tact", it needs to recognize that it's looking at a person (or whatever). And if it recognized a person, then there wouldn't have been this problem because it would just label it correctly.

You can certainly include tact. The algorithm thinks it's more likely it's 51%-49% gorilla/person split, but a level above that chooses person as the answer as even though it'll be wrong more often, the impact of the error is lower.

This is why you shouldn't just train your system to hit higher accuracy figures but also investigate the type of errors it's making. This needs to be done while thinking about your specific use case and domain.

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