Category Archives: big data

Seeking ethics in visual tech

analytic, Artificial Intelligence, big data, computer vision, Content Recognition, Facial recognition, PhotoTech, research, study, visual recognition September 19, 2017 Paul Melcher 1 Comment

The Trolley Problem is a famous ethic thought-experiment. Here how it goes: There is a Trolley barreling down the railroad tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two…

By 2022, there will be 45 Billion Cameras

analytic, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented reality, big data, computational imaging, computer vision, Content Recognition, depth imaging, Emotion analysis, Facial recognition, imaging, mobile, photo organizing, PhotoTech, study, technology, visual recognition August 18, 2017 Paul Melcher 1 Comment

It might have all started when Snapchat rebranded itself “A camera company”. Or even long before, in 2002, when Nokia decided to put a camera on their cell phones. Whenever it happened, it is still really only the beginning… “It” is the moment the camera became forever separated from its original format, a lens on a movable box, and its original intent, recording personal memories. The shift was triggered when film became digital and thus transforming images into data files. Not only could images be easily and…

Cloud or On-Premise visual A.I. : Which should you pick ?

analytic, Artificial Intelligence, big data, computer vision, content, Content Recognition, Facial recognition, Interface, marketing, photo organizing, photo sharing, PhotoTech, Social Media, technology, visual recognition July 19, 2017 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

Today, all of the visual recognition APIs are connected to the cloud making them not only extremely easy to deploy but highly scalable. However, not all data is equal and in some instances, this might not be the best route to take. Consider, for example, some of the intrinsic security issues of a cloud as listed by the CSA (Cloud Security Alliance): Data breaches, compromised credentials, account hijacking, malicious insiders, loss or theft of intellectual property, compliance violations or regulatory actions. While Google Cloud, Amazon…

The battle of the photo format

Adobe, big data, computational imaging, content, editing, flickr, mobile, news, Social Media, technology, video June 8, 2017 Paul Melcher 1 Comment

Hidden deep inside Apple’s WWDC 17 was an announcement that made little waves but that might have great repercussion: In their OS11 release, the Cupertino company plans to store images using their new HEIF format rather the almighty JPEG. The reason? HEIF compression takes half the space of the JPEG compression, suddenly doubling storage for photos. What is HEIF? HEIF is short for High-Efficiency Image Format. It was created by MPEG, the committee in charge of all standard video compression formats ( MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264/AVC, HEVC/H.265). An HEIF file…

10 Questions to a Founder : Picasso Labs

advertising, analytic, Artificial Intelligence, big data, Brands, content, Content Recognition, interview, marketing, PhotoTech, Social Media, visual recognition June 1, 2017 Paul Melcher 1 Comment

While billions of images are being shared daily, little to nothing is known about how viewers respond to them. Until now. Using hundreds of thousands of data points extracted from million of images, Picasso Labs offers the first A.I. powered insight tool for images. Thanks to its deep analytical resources, it helps brands and marketers understand which images work best for what audience, and why. We sat down with founder and CEO Anastasia Leng to learn more: – A little about you, what is your…

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LDV Vision Summit 17 – 10 Questions for an Investor: KBS Ventures

advertising, analytic, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented reality, big data, Brands, Funding, interview, investment, LDV Summit, marketing, PhotoTech, Pinterest, Snapchat, Social Media, VR April 27, 2017 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

There’s a definitive symbiosis between visual tech and digital marketing: Not only is vision the primary sense used when making a buying decision, it is also the most efficient in tracking and deciphering a consumer’s path to the critical buy impulse. While brands might not have yet adopted the rapid pace of evolution offered by the countless new start-ups in the field, advertising agencies and their investment arms have long known that it’s a battlefield with huge potential outcome. We spoke with Jessica Peltz-Zatulove – Partner…

Any marketer who’s not using image A.I. is missing out

advertising, analytic, Artificial Intelligence, big data, Brands, computer vision, content, Content Recognition, Facial recognition, flickr, Instagram, marketing, photo sharing, Pinterest, Snapchat, Social Media, Twitter, UGC, visual recognition February 9, 2017 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

Everyone knows the number and it doesn’t lie: 1.6 Billion images uploaded daily. Out of the main platforms people use to communicate daily, the top 5 (Instagram, Snapchat, Whatsapp, Facebook, Pinterest) use almost exclusively photographs. It is estimated that 75% of the web’s real estate is also made of images. Yet marketers seem to completely ignore mining this vast pool of extremely valuable information, choosing to rely instead on inefficient hashtags or vague keywords. The numbers tell the story: Snapchat (8,796 photos shared per second), Whatsapp (8,102 Photos shared…

Is Amazon serious about visual recognition ?

Artificial Intelligence, big data, computer vision, content, Content Recognition, Emotion analysis, Facial recognition, google, PhotoTech, technology, visual recognition December 5, 2016 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

Amazon is the latest big company to throw itself into the visual content recognition market. Armed with the late 2015 acquisition of Orbeus, makers of ReKognition and Photo Time, it just launched its own APi service, also called ReKognition. After giants like Google, IBM, Microsoft, and smaller companies like Imagga or Clarifai, it is the latest, and maybe most formidable, offering in this space At first glance, nothing really new here, if compared to other similar services. In fact, it seems that Amazon is done little…

10 Questions to a GM : Picscout Insights for Business

advertising, analytic, Artificial Intelligence, big data, Brands, content, Content Recognition, getty, interview, marketing, Social Media, technology, video, visual recognition November 16, 2016 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

We live in a world dominated by visual content. Yet, we have little to no knowledge on what and how that content works. We publish, share and consume thousands of images a day, yet we have no idea why a particular image has so much engagement and the other, none. That is about to change. Mixing analytics with A.I., Israeli-based company Picscout is breaking the chains of ignorance and promises to inject science where instinct previously ruled. With Insight for Business ( and it’s consumer version…

10 Questions to a founder : Beautifeye

advertising, analytic, Artificial Intelligence, big data, Brands, content, Content Recognition, Emotion analysis, Facial recognition, Instagram, interview, marketing, research, Social Media, technology, UGC, visual recognition October 18, 2016 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

While we are all aware photos have a massively dominating position on the web, we are also painfully aware of how little is done to tap into this massive source of data. What people photograph and share reveal a lot about what they can and will consume. Few startups offer solutions, mostly because the task is not simple. The massive volume, the separated ( and walled) locations, the current limitations of content recognition makes it extremely difficult to return meaningful and actionable results. However, some jump…