101–110 of 168 posts
But I think I finally figured it out in my case. I had used Picasa to upload the pics years ago. In Picasa, I had entered a caption with enough detail for Facebook to guess the location. The caption had never been uploaded (i.e. set as the photo's caption on Facebook), but I'm guessing they did somehow capture that info on upload.
In all likelihood, there's no magic. Its just comparing 'dumb' manual album labels with places pages and trying to match them up.
I've had similar experiences with the location-suggestion feature where I was totally bewildered by how it was getting the data to recognize the locations. As it turns out, all of the albums they've done this for were pre-location tagging and so I'd manually put in a location (like 'Bowery Ballroom'). So there wasn't any particular magic in how they seem to be doing it. This would also explain one of the other comments on here about the location suggestions being England, Arkansas (if she just labeled the album England and the location suggester goofed). I also had it goof when I had an album labeled "Rhode Island and Massachusetts" and it tried to suggest a real estate agency with that in its name.
The important thing to take away from this: If they can make guesses this accurate about your photos, imagine they guesses they're making behind the scenes about your life, your personality and your innermost thoughts. If there was a page on fb where it showed all the inferences they had made about you, sexuality, income, religion, philosophical viewpoints, mental health, etc. then people would run screaming. Of cour…
Some of them where right, but more than half of them was wrong (I am not, for the record, interested in Paleontology).
How could Facebook do this (technologically)? According to a redditor, " - It's not IP address . Facebook successfully identified a number of specific locations (bars, theaters, etc) even though I had uploaded the photos from my home - It's not geo-tagging . All of my photos were taken with a camera that does not geo-tag (Nikon d700). - It's not contextual tagging . There were no people tagged in the photos, no comme…
Could be as simple as figuring out that the picture is a baby, get the user's location and then find near-by hospitals. Then ask if the guess is right.
If so, we're in trouble...
Ignoring the how of this new feature, what is the upside to me as a user of confirming to Facebook the hospital in which my child was born? Why do they think people would generally be interested in clicking "Yes" on these suggestions? That they are helpfully filling in the blanks on photos I "forgot" to location-tag?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale-invariant_feature_transfo... Facebook almost certainly has more photo information than TinEye or Flickr, and of indoor environments probably more than Google (which has reverse image search too). Across any given bar or hospital Facebook would have maybe 5-10 other people with albums tagged with the name/gps/check-in. They'd only need one other album though. SIFT more or less turns…
Well, to SIFT they'll all look different. Except for the hospital room in Portland, OR and the hospital room in Portland, ME that each happen to have a sign with "Portland Hospital" visibile in the picture. While I'm alarmed about the potential of computer vision to compromise my privacy, I have yet to see anything in actual use even be competent, let alone alarming.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Statistical analysis can give you a lot more than just what I like to read. The power of statistics never ceases to amaze: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem
Funny you should mention it. I am in the middle of Cryptonomicon - a thoroughly enjoyable read with a heavy focus on this area of study.
I'd like to fantasize that there could be a way to use a social network like Facebook with a tool like Ordo -- that is, most the data (photos, in this case) you upload to FB is encrypted, and only people who you've approved can decrypt it. Using steganography this is probably already possible with FB, probably not practical, though.
The important thing to take away from this: If they can make guesses this accurate about your photos, imagine they guesses they're making behind the scenes about your life, your personality and your innermost thoughts. If there was a page on fb where it showed all the inferences they had made about you, sexuality, income, religion, philosophical viewpoints, mental health, etc. then people would run screaming. Of cour…
I found googles page where they tell you which catagories of things they believe about you (basically age and interests). Some of them where right, but more than half of them was wrong (I am not, for the record, interested in Paleontology).