The image analysis technology doesn’t actually operate in under a minute, Infosecurity notes, but harnesses the existing search algorithms that Google uses for its image search.
It’s similar algorithms that allow Google to spider-search all aspects of the web on a 24x7 basis, allowing your text searches to return a result in a matter of a few seconds.
Not unexpectedly, the imminent arrival of PittPatt in Google’s search arsenal has gone down badly with industry privacy watchers.
According to the Dailytech newswire, the software and back-office systems have potentially devastating effects as far as personal privacy is concerned.
The newswire says that the software calls the PittPatt interface with a picture it has captured, with PittPatt hopping online and comparing that picture to millions of images in Facebook and in Google Inc.'s (GOOG) image search, using advanced facial recognition technology.
“It seems straight out of futurist thriller flick The Minority Report, where Tom Cruise's character is assailed by advertising billboards that ID him by retinal scans. In the movie Cruise solves this problem by replacing his eyeballs. In real life it won't be that simple), says the newswire, suggesting that solution may lie in facial modification.
PittPatt, says Dailytech, was a Carnegie Mellon University research project, which spun off into a company after the 9/11 terrorist attacks of a decade ago.
After DARPA invested millions into the PittPatt project, the software now works – which perhaps explains why Google acquired the firm in July of this year.
The newswire notes that a researcher at Carnegie Mellon has designed an iPhone app that functions as a front end for PittPatt's facial recognition technology – the app is currently under evaluation with Apple, Infosecurity understands.