Facebook launches automatic face recognition in photos

Today, July 1 (July 2 in the Philippines), Facebook launched face recognition capability in Facebook Photos, allowing people to semi-automatically tag their friends in newly uploaded pictures. "Most people spend their time uploading, browsing and tagging their photos. (Tagging) can be a tedious process (but) you now can add tags directly from your home page and other sections of the site, using the same face detection technology that cameras have used for years," said Facebook developer Sam Odio on Facebook's official blog. The new feature automatically highlights faces in photos and prompts the user with the question, "Whose face is this?" "With this new feature, tagging is faster since you don't need to select a face. It's already selected for you, just like those rectangles you see around your friends' faces when you take a photo with a modern digital camera," Odio added. Although Facebook did not disclose the specific details of the software behind its new face recognition feature, similar functionality employed in digital cameras uses special algorithms to detect patterns and combinations of shapes, shades, or colors to determine the position of faces in photographs. Odio noted that 99 percent of people using Facebook have uploaded at least one photo, and more than 100 million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day. - GMANews.TV