Filed under: Internet, Photo, Utilities, Productivity, Web services, Search, web 2.0
Polar Rose plug-in: facial recognition in your browser?
Though it is currently accessible only to a closed set of beta testers, it seems the 22 minds behind Polar Rose are trying to create a sort of "Google" for people pictures -- a system that is always indexing visual information. But that's only the beginning of the service.
Beta testers have recently been given access to an Internet Explorer and Firefox plug-in that will scan faces on a loaded web-page, placing an orange or red rose icon in the lower right-hand corner of every face on the page. The color of the icon depends on whether or not the system can stick a name to the face, and this is determined by whether or not the face has been registered with the system. Any unnamed faces can be registered with the system from there, though, don't expect miracles. The plug-in struggles with low-quality or poorly lit photos.
This is "cool," of course, and we tend to like advanced stuff like this even if it's not personally useful to us. But what happens if a web-user doesn't want his/her face indexed? As is often with new technology/services (stop-light cameras, Google, Facebook, RFID cards, etc.) this may one day begin to spark the paranoia of privacy rights activists -- assuming it gets big enough to get noticed by less nerdy common folk.
[via BLORGE]
Beta testers have recently been given access to an Internet Explorer and Firefox plug-in that will scan faces on a loaded web-page, placing an orange or red rose icon in the lower right-hand corner of every face on the page. The color of the icon depends on whether or not the system can stick a name to the face, and this is determined by whether or not the face has been registered with the system. Any unnamed faces can be registered with the system from there, though, don't expect miracles. The plug-in struggles with low-quality or poorly lit photos.
This is "cool," of course, and we tend to like advanced stuff like this even if it's not personally useful to us. But what happens if a web-user doesn't want his/her face indexed? As is often with new technology/services (stop-light cameras, Google, Facebook, RFID cards, etc.) this may one day begin to spark the paranoia of privacy rights activists -- assuming it gets big enough to get noticed by less nerdy common folk.
[via BLORGE]
With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet.
They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...
