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 !!
