Improved Facial Recognition on Google+

By Marco A. Ayllon
Nautilus Technology News
July 25, 2011

Google acquired facial recognition software specialist Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition (PittPatt) Co., which was born from research at Carnegie Mellon University.

Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition (PittPatt), which makes facial recognition software that identifies users from images and video, was launched in 2004 by Henry Schneiderman, who performed his research both as a student and faculty member of the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute.
Facial recognition software can be an extremely sensitive topic, as Facebook learned in June when its social network users learned the company was using facial recognition to improve its photos product.

The PittPatt team explained in a note on its Website that it would use its computer vision technology and talent in applications that range from simple photo organization to complex video and mobile applications at Google.

"At Google, computer vision technology is already at the core of many existing products (such as Image Search, YouTube, Picasa, and Goggles), so it's a natural fit to join Google and bring the benefits of our research and technology to a wider audience," the PittPatt team wrote.
Thus, a Google spokesperson declined to say in what capacity the company would use PittPatt's software or talent to bolster specific Web services.

Google spokesperson told Nautilus Technology News: "The Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition team has developed pioneering technology in the area of pattern recognition and computer vision," and "We think their research and technology can benefit our users in many ways, and we look forward to working with them."

Moore Criticism & Protest Escalate Over Google+ Accounts Deletions

Above image depicts a presonal page from Google Plus.

By Marco A. Ayllon
Nautilus Technology News
July 25, 2011

We noticed an issue that had been boiling for several weeks and bubbled over this weekend, as Google apparently accelerated deletions of Google+ accounts because of the site's requirement that members use their real names.

Google+ members started complaining about this situation about a week after Google launched the Social Networking site in late June. And over the past three weeks, various Google executives have addressed the issue.
On July 11, Google+ Community Manager Natalie Villalobos tackled the complaints in the site's official discussion forum, reiterating the policy and clarifying the procedure for appealing a deletion.
Still, gripes have continued appearing on the official Google+ discussion board and in other forums like Twitter and personal blogs. The outcry reached a crescendo this weekend when Google zapped the accounts of some high-profile users.
The complaints fall into two categories. There is one group of Google+ users who claim they're using their real names but apparently got their accounts deleted because they have a non-traditional names or their names contain foreign-language characters or letters.
Then there is another camp of people who want to use pseudonyms because they do not want to reveal their real-names for different reasons.
The controversy echoes a concurrent one with public figures and companies that have set up Google+ business profiles, which currently are forbidden and which Google is also deleting. Google hopes to permit business profiles at the next months.
Google maintains that Google+'s content-sharing features and privacy settings are better and easier to use than Facebook's, and that this will prompt a massive defection of Facebook users.
Facebook remains by far the most popular social networking site in the world, with 750 million members and counting. In the next months you could use their new Messenger or Video-Calling powered by Skype which will enable you to send video messages.