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Google Cloud Vision API enters Beta

googlecloudplatform.blogspot.com

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Re: Google Cloud Vision API enters Beta

#11

Post by mentat »

jfoster wrote: post #3

I feel like this is some really compelling tech. It would be so amazing to build stuff with this in mind. I wouldn't be comfortable doing it, though. This sort of API is available only until Google decide that they don't want it to be available. There's not really anything close to equivalent that you could drop in to replace it if it were being shut down, the price were being hiked, or you had some sort of other iss…

The question is, is this your core business? If you want to roll your own ML / CV API and your investors / customers will value you based on it, great. If it's not your core business, then SaaS / API interfaces save you time / money / ability to get into the market. Composability is what we do nowadays and you're always going to be exposed to risk. Recognize that risk and move on or go out of business trying to do it all yourself.

Re: Google Cloud Vision API enters Beta

#12

Post by tegansnyder »

I've been using this since the private beta to enrich my eCommerce crawlers with product identifiers not found on the content of an eCommerce product page, but found in the product image itself. Imagine a part number or UPC displayed on a product box, but nowhere in the HTML content of the product page. Using the Google CV OCR feature I can extract meaningful product data from an image to compliment my existing crawl data. It works great.

Re: Google Cloud Vision API enters Beta

#13

Post by saguppa »

onli wrote: post #5
jfoster wrote: post #3

I feel like this is some really compelling tech. It would be so amazing to build stuff with this in mind. I wouldn't be comfortable doing it, though. This sort of API is available only until Google decide that they don't want it to be available. There's not really anything close to equivalent that you could drop in to replace it if it were being shut down, the price were being hiked, or you had some sort of other iss…

There actually are other APIs, though with a smaller scope. For text extraction for example there is the OnDemand Api, https://dev.havenondemand.com/apis/ocrdocument#overview , backed by HP. They also have logo detection. I'd be surprised if no replacement for the category detection exists. Though I admit I also hesitate to replace that API with the google offering for the one app where I actually use it. The results…

There's also this API by Microsoft Research. https://www.projectoxford.ai/

Re: Google Cloud Vision API enters Beta

#14

Post by netinstructions »

jfoster wrote: post #3

I feel like this is some really compelling tech. It would be so amazing to build stuff with this in mind. I wouldn't be comfortable doing it, though. This sort of API is available only until Google decide that they don't want it to be available. There's not really anything close to equivalent that you could drop in to replace it if it were being shut down, the price were being hiked, or you had some sort of other iss…

If I were you I'd build a MVP with this API (or IBM Watson's API) and see how it goes. If your product/service starts to take off, you could start looking into implementing your own machine learning / computer vision algorithm, hoping one day it gets good enough to replace whatever API you bootstrapped the product/service with.

Re: Google Cloud Vision API enters Beta

#15

Post by jneal »

jfoster wrote: post #3

I feel like this is some really compelling tech. It would be so amazing to build stuff with this in mind. I wouldn't be comfortable doing it, though. This sort of API is available only until Google decide that they don't want it to be available. There's not really anything close to equivalent that you could drop in to replace it if it were being shut down, the price were being hiked, or you had some sort of other iss…

I understand your apprehension because I feel the same way, to some degree. But I'm excited about the new types of tech that I can already imagine using this API. There are so many fascinating ideas that come to mind, and I'm usually not that creative of a person.

I think Google understands how big this could be (well, why else do they do anything I suppose?). I guess you'd just have to put faith in them. I imagine those that do will build some amazing projects from this.

Re: Google Cloud Vision API enters Beta

#16

Post by [deleted] »

netinstructions wrote: post #7

I was looking into label detection APIs (and Google's offerings as well) for a silly game/website I was thinking of writing, but $5 per 1000 images is way too steep, especially if each user is submitting 1-5 images per interaction with the website. The $2 per 1000 images price they mention on the blog post is only if you're doing 5+ million images a month. I played with IBM Watson visual recognition API and it didn't…

[deleted]

Re: Google Cloud Vision API enters Beta

#19

Post by legohead »

jfoster wrote: post #3

I feel like this is some really compelling tech. It would be so amazing to build stuff with this in mind. I wouldn't be comfortable doing it, though. This sort of API is available only until Google decide that they don't want it to be available. There's not really anything close to equivalent that you could drop in to replace it if it were being shut down, the price were being hiked, or you had some sort of other iss…

I have all kinds of product ideas from this API, but have the same fears as you.. can't rely on an API.

So for now, my best idea is to use it to build something fun with my kids.

If only Google would adopt some sort of policy where they would let you download the dataset+code when they shut something off...

Re: Google Cloud Vision API enters Beta

#20

Post by eurekin »

netinstructions wrote: post #7

I was looking into label detection APIs (and Google's offerings as well) for a silly game/website I was thinking of writing, but $5 per 1000 images is way too steep, especially if each user is submitting 1-5 images per interaction with the website. The $2 per 1000 images price they mention on the blog post is only if you're doing 5+ million images a month. I played with IBM Watson visual recognition API and it didn't…

I wrote once document detection library. It was supposed to recognize corners of a printout in a photo. Is that close?

EDIT: you could send me example images and what you need from them. I could check how much I would need to extend it to handle your case.

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