Google Images is freaking me out!

scratchpaddy · 01-08-2014, 07:33 PM

Has anybody noticed how powerful a tool Google Images has become?

I bet a lot of people don't realize this, but you can search from an image. I use it to find out if I've posted an image before here, and if so, where. Sometimes it really surprises me with other things, though.

For example: I gave it this picture to make sure I hadn't posted it before:

This is what it came up with:

I never told it about the library. It's not in the image's URL, nor it's filename, nowhere. The camera's not GPS-equipped. But that's exactly where I took the picture, and Google knew it!

Granted, it's hit or miss, but this really shocked me, and you know it's only going to get better.

Here's another. This one's not as surprising, but it still impressed me:

Google picked up on that Bike Lane sign immediately, regardless of the fact that it's upside-down. It gave me a link to a nice "Manual of Traffic Signs." The sign I took a picture of is about halfway down the page.

Serously, people, try this out. You might be impressed. Or frightened.

elliott · 01-08-2014, 07:41 PM

The Google Goggles app for Android does basically the same thing, but will do the search the instant you take the picture.

photographyguy74 · 01-08-2014, 07:41 PM

I think I'd be frightened.

**jac** · 01-08-2014, 07:45 PM

I vote for frightened.

elliott · 01-08-2014, 07:50 PM

Originally posted by photographyguy74

I think I'd be frightened.

Google Now is the frightening one, it learns your routine. It keeps track of locations you visit often, so it learns where and when you work, it learns what restaurants you like and a lot more, all without any input from you other than carrying the phone with you. It also learns your travel times between various locations so it can help you plan departure times.

scratchpaddy · 01-08-2014, 07:52 PM

Originally posted by elliott

The Google Goggles app for Android does basically the same thing, but will do the search the instant you take the picture.

Huh! That looks pretty cool! I didn't know about that one.

Originally posted by photographyguy74

I think I'd be frightened.

Originally posted by jac

I vote for frightened.

Yeah, it's scary, isn't it? I wonder where this is going...

scratchpaddy · 01-08-2014, 07:54 PM

Originally posted by elliott

Google Now is the frightening one, it learns your routine. It keeps track of locations you visit often, so it learns where and when you work, it learns what restaurants you like and a lot more, all without any input from you other than carrying the phone with you. It also learns your travel times between various locations so it can help you plan departure times.

...and sell you stuff! With smartphones, the formerly little computer world is breaking out into the real world in a big way.

elliott · 01-08-2014, 07:57 PM

Originally posted by scratchpaddy

Huh! That looks pretty cool! I didn't know about that one.

One thing I should mention, which I learned by a horrible mistake, by default it is linked to your camera app. You can disable this in the Goggles settings and I would recommend it because sometimes you really don't want it to search for whatever text you happen to be taking a picture of. I have it set to only be active when I run the Goggles app and not the standard camera app.

scratchpaddy · 01-08-2014, 08:08 PM

Originally posted by elliott

One thing I should mention, which I learned by a horrible mistake, by default it is linked to your camera app. You can disable this in the Goggles settings and I would recommend it because sometimes you really don't want it to search for whatever text you happen to be taking a picture of. I have it set to only be active when I run the Goggles app and not the standard camera app.

Don't worry, my phone doesn't have a camera on it, or a touchscreen, or anything more sophisticated than is required for calling people.

elliott · 01-08-2014, 08:17 PM

Originally posted by scratchpaddy

Don't worry, my phone doesn't have a camera on it, or a touchscreen, or anything more sophisticated than is required for calling people.

Mine is a computer that happens to make phone calls occasionally, being a 2.3ghz quad core it might actually be more powerful than my actual computer. I didn't have a mobile phone until Android phones became cheap and decent enough, since I despise talking on the phone.

calculator01 · 01-08-2014, 08:27 PM

People still use Google?

All "politics" aside, I have used that feature many times and it is creepy, like all of Google.

What's even creepier is searching an image of someone (yourself) and getting results.

elliott · 01-08-2014, 08:40 PM

Originally posted by calculator01

People still use Google?

All "politics" aside, I have used that feature many times and it is creepy, like all of Google.

What's even creepier is searching an image of someone (yourself) and getting results.

It is definitely something you need to be aware of what you are sharing when using it, but a lot of the information is out there whether you want it to be or not. At least Google will give you a report of what it knows about you and give you the option to delete it.

I don't personally use Google Now, I disable location services on my devices unless needed for navigation, I only use Goggles for things I would be searching for anyway and I don't put anything on Google's cloud services that would be of any interest to anyone but me. I'm also non-existent on all social media sites, Google+ or otherwise.

**MSL** · 01-08-2014, 09:04 PM

Welcome to the world of big data where almost anything and everything you do can become data for someone to mine. I can see why you are freaked out, but on the flip side, whether from fictional movies and television shows or more realistic ones, we probably aren't all that surprised by facial recognition software. Of the two images you showed, the Burton Barr library is probably an easy one for a computer to identify. It has some fairly strong features from the lighting and symmetry aspects. I'm sure most people who had see the library would recall it from the picture you took. A bit like the Sydney Opera House or other buildings with strong features. The second one would be harder for a person to identify - either you know where that upside down bike sign is or you don't. But the computer can "easily" correlate upside down text on a sign that is a certain distance from a Armore sign and might even be able to enhance the road signs in the distance to extract more useful text. I'm not trying to downplay how impressive data analysis and searching methods have become but I'm not surprised by these capabilities.

scratchpaddy · 01-08-2014, 09:23 PM

I shouldn't be surprised either, but it just seems like we've crossed a line. Computers live in a world of data. Images seem like such a complex, organic thing that I just never expected a computer to be able to look at one and know exactly where it is. I didn't choose my perspective, my focal length, my focus point, my camera, my lens, etc. to make it easy for a computer to identify the place, but that didn't stop it. I know it doesn't work the same way we do, and so far, it's limited, but it's getting there.

That's a good point about the facial recognition thing. Fingerprints, too. I guess computers have been doing this for a long time. It just never quite hit home for me until now.

photographyguy74 · 01-08-2014, 10:40 PM

Originally posted by elliott

Google Now is the frightening one, it learns your routine. It keeps track of locations you visit often, so it learns where and when you work, it learns what restaurants you like and a lot more, all without any input from you other than carrying the phone with you. It also learns your travel times between various locations so it can help you plan departure times.

So...in other words, Google Now is a stalker?

01-08-2014, 07:33 PM	#1
scratchpaddy Pentaxian Join Date: Feb 2013 Location: Phoenix Posts: 3,361	Google Images is freaking me out! Has anybody noticed how powerful a tool Google Images has become? I bet a lot of people don't realize this, but you can search from an image. I use it to find out if I've posted an image before here, and if so, where. Sometimes it really surprises me with other things, though. For example: I gave it this picture to make sure I hadn't posted it before: This is what it came up with: I never told it about the library. It's not in the image's URL, nor it's filename, nowhere. The camera's not GPS-equipped. But that's exactly where I took the picture, and Google knew it! Granted, it's hit or miss, but this really shocked me, and you know it's only going to get better. Here's another. This one's not as surprising, but it still impressed me: Google picked up on that Bike Lane sign immediately, regardless of the fact that it's upside-down. It gave me a link to a nice "Manual of Traffic Signs." The sign I took a picture of is about halfway down the page. Serously, people, try this out. You might be impressed. Or frightened.

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01-08-2014, 07:41 PM	#2
elliott Inactive Account Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: North Carolina Photos: Albums Posts: 1,720	The Google Goggles app for Android does basically the same thing, but will do the search the instant you take the picture.

01-08-2014, 07:41 PM	#3
photographyguy74 Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2013 Location: Davenport, Iowa Photos: Albums Posts: 331	I think I'd be frightened.

01-08-2014, 07:45 PM	#4
jac Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Clyde River, Nunavut, Canada Posts: 2,364	I vote for frightened.

01-08-2014, 07:50 PM	#5
elliott Inactive Account Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: North Carolina Photos: Albums Posts: 1,720	Originally posted by photographyguy74 I think I'd be frightened. Google Now is the frightening one, it learns your routine. It keeps track of locations you visit often, so it learns where and when you work, it learns what restaurants you like and a lot more, all without any input from you other than carrying the phone with you. It also learns your travel times between various locations so it can help you plan departure times.

01-08-2014, 07:52 PM	#6
scratchpaddy Pentaxian Join Date: Feb 2013 Location: Phoenix Posts: 3,361 Original Poster	Originally posted by elliott The Google Goggles app for Android does basically the same thing, but will do the search the instant you take the picture. Huh! That looks pretty cool! I didn't know about that one. Originally posted by photographyguy74 I think I'd be frightened. Originally posted by jac I vote for frightened. Yeah, it's scary, isn't it? I wonder where this is going...

01-08-2014, 07:54 PM	#7
scratchpaddy Pentaxian Join Date: Feb 2013 Location: Phoenix Posts: 3,361 Original Poster	Originally posted by elliott Google Now is the frightening one, it learns your routine. It keeps track of locations you visit often, so it learns where and when you work, it learns what restaurants you like and a lot more, all without any input from you other than carrying the phone with you. It also learns your travel times between various locations so it can help you plan departure times. ...and sell you stuff! With smartphones, the formerly little computer world is breaking out into the real world in a big way.

01-08-2014, 07:57 PM	#8
elliott Inactive Account Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: North Carolina Photos: Albums Posts: 1,720	Originally posted by scratchpaddy Huh! That looks pretty cool! I didn't know about that one. One thing I should mention, which I learned by a horrible mistake, by default it is linked to your camera app. You can disable this in the Goggles settings and I would recommend it because sometimes you really don't want it to search for whatever text you happen to be taking a picture of. I have it set to only be active when I run the Goggles app and not the standard camera app.

01-08-2014, 08:08 PM	#9
scratchpaddy Pentaxian Join Date: Feb 2013 Location: Phoenix Posts: 3,361 Original Poster	Originally posted by elliott One thing I should mention, which I learned by a horrible mistake, by default it is linked to your camera app. You can disable this in the Goggles settings and I would recommend it because sometimes you really don't want it to search for whatever text you happen to be taking a picture of. I have it set to only be active when I run the Goggles app and not the standard camera app. Don't worry, my phone doesn't have a camera on it, or a touchscreen, or anything more sophisticated than is required for calling people.

01-08-2014, 08:17 PM	#10
elliott Inactive Account Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: North Carolina Photos: Albums Posts: 1,720	Originally posted by scratchpaddy Don't worry, my phone doesn't have a camera on it, or a touchscreen, or anything more sophisticated than is required for calling people. Mine is a computer that happens to make phone calls occasionally, being a 2.3ghz quad core it might actually be more powerful than my actual computer. I didn't have a mobile phone until Android phones became cheap and decent enough, since I despise talking on the phone.

01-08-2014, 08:27 PM	#11
calculator01 Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Edmonton, Alberta Photos: Albums Posts: 817	People still use Google? All "politics" aside, I have used that feature many times and it is creepy, like all of Google. What's even creepier is searching an image of someone (yourself) and getting results.

01-08-2014, 08:40 PM	#12
elliott Inactive Account Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: North Carolina Photos: Albums Posts: 1,720	Originally posted by calculator01 People still use Google? All "politics" aside, I have used that feature many times and it is creepy, like all of Google. What's even creepier is searching an image of someone (yourself) and getting results. It is definitely something you need to be aware of what you are sharing when using it, but a lot of the information is out there whether you want it to be or not. At least Google will give you a report of what it knows about you and give you the option to delete it. I don't personally use Google Now, I disable location services on my devices unless needed for navigation, I only use Goggles for things I would be searching for anyway and I don't put anything on Google's cloud services that would be of any interest to anyone but me. I'm also non-existent on all social media sites, Google+ or otherwise.

01-08-2014, 09:04 PM	#13
MSL Site Supporter Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Greater Toronto Area Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 4,756	Welcome to the world of big data where almost anything and everything you do can become data for someone to mine. I can see why you are freaked out, but on the flip side, whether from fictional movies and television shows or more realistic ones, we probably aren't all that surprised by facial recognition software. Of the two images you showed, the Burton Barr library is probably an easy one for a computer to identify. It has some fairly strong features from the lighting and symmetry aspects. I'm sure most people who had see the library would recall it from the picture you took. A bit like the Sydney Opera House or other buildings with strong features. The second one would be harder for a person to identify - either you know where that upside down bike sign is or you don't. But the computer can "easily" correlate upside down text on a sign that is a certain distance from a Armore sign and might even be able to enhance the road signs in the distance to extract more useful text. I'm not trying to downplay how impressive data analysis and searching methods have become but I'm not surprised by these capabilities.

01-08-2014, 09:23 PM	#14
scratchpaddy Pentaxian Join Date: Feb 2013 Location: Phoenix Posts: 3,361 Original Poster	I shouldn't be surprised either, but it just seems like we've crossed a line. Computers live in a world of data. Images seem like such a complex, organic thing that I just never expected a computer to be able to look at one and know exactly where it is. I didn't choose my perspective, my focal length, my focus point, my camera, my lens, etc. to make it easy for a computer to identify the place, but that didn't stop it. I know it doesn't work the same way we do, and so far, it's limited, but it's getting there. That's a good point about the facial recognition thing. Fingerprints, too. I guess computers have been doing this for a long time. It just never quite hit home for me until now.

01-08-2014, 10:40 PM	#15
photographyguy74 Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2013 Location: Davenport, Iowa Photos: Albums Posts: 331	Originally posted by elliott Google Now is the frightening one, it learns your routine. It keeps track of locations you visit often, so it learns where and when you work, it learns what restaurants you like and a lot more, all without any input from you other than carrying the phone with you. It also learns your travel times between various locations so it can help you plan departure times. So...in other words, Google Now is a stalker?