The guys at google have done it again. I just came across Riya as one of the top searched keywords on technorati. Now since nothing remotely Indian except the IIPM has earned that honor since I know and the whole Ashmit Patel - Riya sen episode was quite old by now I got curious and found that, these guys have plans to buy the face recognition software company Riya. Name Riya comes from the fact that the CEO is a desi. On the face of it nothing scary about this for a layman, but I found interesting apprehensive post here about this whole episode.
The excerpt [ Yeah yeah..copy paste ..saved you some mouse clicks ]
Go to riya.com. Look at what they do. Now think. Google knows who and what I search for. They know all the email I’ve ever communicated. They have a pretty good idea where I live. I’m not sure I’m totally happy about them being able to pick me out of a photo as well!
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Say, if you had a set of “faces” linked to email address of people who you had a fair idea were living in an area, wouldn’t it be something to set up a camera outside a shop. Then you could send email to every person who went into the shop that day.
Hang on though. What if looked alike to someone else, someone who just really pissed someone off? What if someone (maliciously) tagged me as someone other than who I was. Oh it goes on!
Sometimes its good to analyze the darker side as well I guess. Technology as good as its intended purpose !!
1 comment:
Looking back on the incident now, and especially now with the news that Yahoo has bought del.ico.us, I think it's really interesting that I felt the way I did, but that I don't feel that same about Yahoo buying del.ico.us.
Somewhere along the line Google have turned from being the lovable 2-man company into being a silent organisation. I've heard they don't really like working with people and that they are pretty thin-skinned when it comes to taking press critisicm. Certainly last week Google frustrated me in that they don't have any corporate license structure for their maps stuff. They aren't even prepared to discuss it. It's just no. No deal. Which alienates me. I want to use your stuff, Google. I want to give you my company's money. Why are you making this so hard?
On the other hand, I feel kinda excited that Yahoo appear to be making a re-entry. I've blogged about this before, and it's a personal viewpoint, but for me, I'm experiencing Yahoo coming 'back' into my life, and its like seeing a long-lost friend return. It's a Good Thing, and I hope it gives Microsoft and Google a run for their money. I respect them a lot more now that they have Flickr, del.ico.us, and blog.us (which they've also just resurrected by the way).
Hey, why am I blogging all this useful info on your site instead of mine! Pah! ;)
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