NEW YORK - A Swedish startup is combining software and humans to help make photos and other images more easily searchable online, raising privacy concerns as the technology eases the tracking of people across Web sites.
Traditionally, search engines analyze text surrounding an image on a Web site. So a search for "
Bill Gates" might produce a photograph captioned with the name of the Microsoft Corp. chairman. But a search for a reporter's name might produce that same photograph if it had accompanied an article he had written.
Polar Rose AB is bringing facial-recognition technology to the mix. Its software scans everyday images for about 90 different attributes. If the software finds a match with images in a database, it concludes the two photos are of the same person.
The company, among many startups seeking to improve image search, believes its technology is noteworthy because it creates 3-D renditions of faces in images, allowing the computer to account for slight variations in angles and lighting.
actually, that sounds pretty useful. i don't know how many times i've looked up pictures for papers and presentations, and found the exact opposite of what i was looking for (ex. diagram of an atom=atom bomb explosion).
