Why Google Decided to Create Its Own Facial-Recognition Privacy Problem

It's Official: Google Acquires Like.com It’s official. Google has acquired Like.com. In a post on Like.com’s homepage, the company’s CEO and Founder Munjal Shah writes that the visual search engine has been bought by Google. We originally reported the acquisition last weekend. While terms of the deal were not disclosed, we’ve heard it’s valued at upwards of $100 million. Shah’s message doesn’t really give us any hints as to what Google will be doing with Like.com but he alludes to the fact that he (and his team) will continue to work on visual search and cross-matching in e-commerce for the search giant. The history behind Like.com and Google is complicated. In 2009, Riya was shut down, but the company had already refocused its efforts on ecommerce – using the Riya core technology to let people search visually by seeing images that are similar to other images. From the product standpoint, Like.com operated its visual search engine and then went on to launch a number of smaller sites devotes to fashion and e-commerce.

Parlemento.com — L'agence de presse des minorités Facial Recognition Software Acquired by Google Google has announced an acquisition of the facial recognition software born out of Carnegie Mellon University called Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition, or PittPatt. PittPatt’s site states that they are looking forward to working within the Google team and that its existing computer vision technology partners made the acquisition a natural match. However, Google may now find itself in a similar situation to that of Facebook in recent months. With the launch of the new Google+ and the lessons learned by Facebook, Google must tread lightly. DRUDGE REPORT 2013®

Google Not Planning To Release Mobile Face Recognition: Update Contrary to what I reported earlier based on a seemingly very credible CNN report, Google is not planning to release a version of its mobile app Goggles with face recognition technology. Google has had the capability for several years but so far refrained from putting it out in the world other than on Picasa. I spoke to Google at some length and a spokesperson said that the CNN piece was based on totally inaccurate conjuncture. That speculation was in turn based on an interview with a Google engineer Hartmut Neven taken out of context. The Google spokesperson said that Google wouldn’t put out facial recognition in a mobile app unless there were very strict privacy controls in place. The CNN article appeared to address that very subject with discussion of an “opt-in” system. Google made the following statement: “As we’ve said for over a year, we won’t add face recognition to Goggles unless we can figure out a strong privacy model for it. Related Entries

Accueil Google acquires Like.com Apr 11, 2014 - 05:15 PM EDT — AAPL: 519.61 (-3.87, -0.74%) | NASDAQ: 3999.734 (-54.372, -1.34%) “Google has acquired visual search company Like.com in a deal that not only strengthens the company’s search and e-commerce capabilities, but also expands its image recognition resources and its social networking opportunities,” Thomas Claburn reports for InformationWeek. Advertisement: The iPad. “No price was disclosed, but TechCrunch reports that Google will pay over $100 million,” Claburn reports. Claburn reports, “While Google’s primary interest in the company is likely to involve using its technology to add value to its core search products, Google also stands to gain through the enhancement of related image recognition services like Google Goggles.” Full article here. MacDailyNews Take: Next up: Evil.com.

Google making app that would identify people's faces Google's Hartmut Neven, pictured here, says the company is working on a facial-recognition app. Google is working on a smartphone app that would identify faces in photos Due to privacy concerns, people will have to opt in to Google's database to be identified Identifying faces using pages publicly available on the internet is technically feasible Santa Monica, California (CNN) -- Google is working on a mobile application that would allow users to snap pictures of people's faces in order to access their personal information, a director for the project said this week. In order to be identified by the software, people would have to check a box agreeing to give Google permission to access their pictures and profile information, said Hartmut Neven, the Google engineering director for image-recognition development. Google's Profiles product includes a user's name, phone number and e-mail address. The technology wouldn't necessarily be rolled out in a separate app, a Google spokesman said.