Incredible Image Convergence

Two web image technologies are close to general availability, and together they will revolutionize the visual power of the internet.

The first is Google's adoption of a human computation algorithm, which will slowly but surely accurately label a vast quantity of images on the internet. Google Image Labeler is based on The ESP Game designed by Luis von Ahn, a subject of one of my previous posts, "The Web is Us(ing us)." Another of von Ahn's games, Peekaboom, may eventually make it to Google as well. Together, the ESP game and Peekaboom accurately associate areas of an image with words that describe them, allowing computers to "see" the contents of images by using people as processors.

The second is Blaise Aguera's algorithm to automatically generate spacial links between images. He presents it here in another TED talk (the first part of his presentation is only tangentially related, but it is also extremely cool - probably next generation web design). His algorithm allows a collection of images on the same subject from widely different sources, of any quality, to be combined into a 3-D model of the subject. All images on the web, categorized by human computation, will be joined together, enhancing each other, creating 3-D models of objects all over the world.

Google Maps already has a street view function in select major cities. Street view, satellite photography, random family photos and tourist snapshots posted to the web will be combined to create an immersing 3-D model of the Earth. It will be as detailed as digital cameras are numerous.

Eventually, video will also be mined for data in the same way, and all the visual data will also be organized in time. You will be able to search through all public recorded time and space. With enough security clearance, you'll be able to search through quite a bit of private recorded time and space as well....

It's going to get very interesting. Already you can zoom in on strangers. People are going to identify themselves and send links to their families. As the volume of accessible images grows, people are going to find x-rated content in public places. Hey, a license plate. Free advertizing? Come on G$$gle, you can do better than that.

Update: here's some more street view shenanigans.