Posts Tagged ‘Google’

Google continues to crank out innovative features in their products.  Today the web version of Picasa added face recognition.  The way it works is intriguing.  After you activate the feature, Picasa goes through all your photos and groups them based on who is in each picture.  All the pictures identified with the same person are then presented together.  Picasa asks once – who is this?  You type the name and all the pictures are tagged with that person’s name.  If a list of photos contains extra pictures (a couple of my kids were identified as the same person), the mis-identified pictures can be dropped from the list.  If a picture contains more than one person, it will show up in several lists as Picasa asks you to identify each person in each photo.

Here’s where it gets interesting.  After names are associated with faces, any picture that is opened will list the people in the photo.  Mouse-over a face and Picasa identifies the person.

This adds a new dimension to searching.  I did a query on all the pictures with Me and Kayla.  This photo came to the top of the list.

Before you add names to all your pictures, consider the privacy settings.  When you enter information about a person, the data includes nickname, full name and email address.  By default, only the nickname associated with a photo shows up on the public side.

Considering the way pictures are identified by current search engines, this new feature of Picasa is a potential game-changer.  I cannot wait for this feature to be added to the desktop version of Picasa.  I have about 50,000 pictures that it can tag.

SketchUp has incredible educational potential.  Using free tools available from Google, Disney has added a 3D layer over the entire Disney World property.  Every building, sidewalk and tree has been drawn in detail.  Above is a picture of the haunted house.  This is a must-see attraction at the Magic Kingdom.  As you enter the building, there are tombstones with funny names and one with a picture of a face with eyes that move.  Zoom in on Google Earth and you can see it below.  Click either picture for higher resolution images.

Think of the geography, mapping, history, architecture, engineering (the list is huge) projects that students could do with these free tools.  Students could recreate a 3D version of the local school, post office, court house and other significant government buildings.  Historical locations could also be added.

These locations would have to be researched.  Community officials would be interviewed.  Measurements would be taken.  Students would learn to use the construction tools available from Google and collaboratively place objects in correct locations.

Layers representing different time periods could be constructed.  Students could see what occupies spaces once used by historical buildings.  This could be a lot of fun… and a learning experience too.

Today Google announced that the ever popular Google Earth program can now be incorporated into a browser.  You will need a plugin, but you will not have to install the heavy application.

I captured the inserted picture from my browser.  I think that’s one of my college buddies getting out of his car.  Either that, or someone is stealing the stereo.

Google has developed an API (complete with sample code) so that developers can use Google Earth in web projects.  All I need to do is find that map key from a couple of years ago.  I know I got one.

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Update: Found the key.  Got it to work.

http://www.trustyetc.com/map/

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I ran across Google Trends yesterday.  I was reading through my news reader while watching the football game.  I clicked over to Google Trends and made a quick realization.

Based on the searches people were doing right now, there were a lot of people watching what I was watching.  The Packers game was on.  The top searches

• green bay
• ryan grant
• brett favre
• lambeau field
• matt hasselbeck
• comanche moon

The names were all of people playing in the game.  Don’t let that last one fool you.  There were a lot of commercials advertising a new show called “Comanche Moon.”  When the first game ended, the searches shifted to names from the second game.

The networks must use this data to determine what people are watching and what they are thinking about.  Better yet, what if a school could get a Google appliance that will show local search trends.  Maybe there is something already out there now.