Image Recognition Problem Finally Solved: Let’s Pay People To Tag Photos

Most people have thousands of digital photos sitting on their hard drive. And the vast majority of those photos aren’t tagged or searchable. Want to find the 300 pictures of your youngest son amongst 10,000 others? It’s not going to happen. Unless you’ve been diligently tagging and categorizing those photos over the years, and who does that?

The problem is obvious. The solution, not so much. A trail of failed startups have tried to tackle the problem with a fairly serious application of technology, including: Riya (now focused on ecommerce via Like.com), Ookles (never launched), and Polar Rose (in private beta for nearly a year), among others.

And now suddenly TagCow appears, which allows users to upload photos and have them tagged within a few minutes. The technology appears to be “magic,” meaning there’s no explanation of it.

If there’s a mountain in the photo, it’s tagged. A dog? yep. A yellow cup? Absolutely. It does people, too. Upload an image of a person and say who it is, and all other images you upload will be tagged with that person, too. The service also integrates with Flickr and will auto tag the photos you have on the service.



Thomas Hawk, the CEO of photo site Zooomr, tried the service and declared it “really, really cool,” although he wonders how it works.

The answer is, humans do it. I note that the TagCow site is careful not to say anything about the tagging process, and never use the word “automated” or anything else that would suggests computers are doing the work. Munjal Shah, the founder of Riya/Like, agreed, noting that it recognized a witch in Thomas’ photo - he says this just isn’t something a computer can do today.

I haven’t confirmed this yet. I’ve emailed the company for a description of how the service works but have yet to hear back. Until we do, I’m betting that humans are the taggers. Note that Google has effectively thrown in the towel and uses humans for this kind of work, too.

TagCow appears to be offering the service for free, so the cost side of the business may be a problem for them down the road. And the business is definitely a little sketchy. Worried about the privacy of your data? Just don’t click on their Privacy Policy or Terms of Use: “Privacy policy is TBD.” and “Legal stuff TBD.” Not exactly a way to build confidence.

Troubleshooting Motherboard Problems: 5 Real World Examples

It's been a painful few weeks here in the basement lab. To put it more precisely, it's been motherboard hell.

I've had to build (and rebuild) an unusually large array of test systems recently. Some have been built to cover interesting new products, like the Skulltrail preview and the recently released AMD Phenom X4 9850. Others were built to compare performance between platforms, such as Skulltrail versus triple SLI and Nvidia's 790i core logic versus Intel X48.

I've also built test systems recently for motherboard reviews—which haven't panned out yet due to some of the technical issues I've encountered. So fast night, as I was slugging down a shot or two of Balvenie Doublewood, I realized that my pain could be your gain.

I've had to troubleshoot an unusually large number of technical issues revolving around new and old motherboards recently, and sharing my problems with you—and the solutions I uncovered—could help you when you build your next system.

Note that one or two of these issues are still ongoing—I'm still trying to solve them. Most, however, have had fixes, though in some cases, they weren't so obvious. So let's run down the litany of pain I've encountered recently, as well as the fixes.
Memory Madness

One of the primary issues with motherboards—particularly new ones—is memory. It's always impressive how "problem memory" suddenly starts working fine when you update the BIOS.
Still, I ran into a more prosaic issue with memory on a motherboard recently. I'd built a system for a friend not long ago—a small form factor system with a single core Athlon 64, a Gigabyte of DDR, and a GeForce 6800 GT. It certainly wasn't something you'd call bleeding edge.

He called me to tell me the video card was bad. So he lugged the system over to the basement lab and we put it on the bench. Sure enough, the fans all spun up, the lights came on—but no POST (Power-On-Self-Test) messages on the display. Must be the graphics card, right?

As usual, I didn't pay attention to the primary clue: The fans kept spinning at high speed, never slowing down in the boot process. It's been my experience that a properly booting system—even one with a bad video card—will quiet down after the initial power up. But I ignored the evidence, believed my buddy and swapped in a new video card.

Powering up yielded the same result—fans spinning at full speed and no POST message on the monitor. Muttering under my breath, I opened up the case again and stared inside. I walked around the open PC, peering at the various components and noticed it.
"It" was subtle. Memory sockets all have these tabbed levers that lock the memory into place, and allow you to easily remove the DRAM module. I saw that one of the tabs was just a little bit pulled out. I pushed down on the corner of the DDR module and felt that satisfying "snap" when a module seats properly.

The system booted normally after that. So the problem wasn't the graphics card, nor was it really the motherboard. It was operator error—or in this case,

continue...............

Low-Tech answers to high-tech problems

Sometimes the answer is not to go out and buy another gizmo or gadget. Here are some new uses for everyday things that can help you get out of a jam.

Wet phone?
The toilet, the sink, a puddle, the laundry… it's so easy for your phone to wind up soaked through and through. Everyone has an opinion on how best to dry out a wet cell phone, but the technique I like best is to remove the battery and place the phone in a bowl of uncooked white rice. The rice wicks the water from the phone. (If your phone uses a SIM card, remove it too. At least you'll have your data.)

Drying out a wet phone with a hair dryer is often a first impulse, but heat can damage the phone even more. For more ideas on drying, from using silica gel to halogen lamps, see Wikihow.

Sleep through the alarm clock?

OK, this one will cost you a cheap wineglass. Break the stem and put your phone inside. The glass amplifies the sound. This one (and photo) come courtesy of Lifehacker.


Need a filter for your camera flash?

Cell phones demand that you get up close and personal when you take a photo, and often the flash will wash the color right out of your subject. To diffuse the flash, use a white coffee filter to make an impromptu filter. I tear the bottom off the cone and put the ruffles around my phone like one of those doggie flea collars.

Taming cords

There are plenty of products you can buy to help keep your gadgets' cords together, but the tube at the end of the toilet paper roll gives you the same results. Real Simple ran this photo in a recent issue.


DVDs with scratches

A lengthy discussion at Lifehacker compared techniques for getting through a movie when your DVD is scratched. The consensus called for either furniture polish or car wax. Apparently the wax fills the scratch and you can watch the movie without missing a scene.

Just put a gob of the stuff right on the disk and wipe. The secret involves using a cloth like an eyeglass cleaner (not a napkin or tissue) to wipe the wax in.

Floss your keyboard with sticky tape

This one reminds me of Garrison Keillor's running duct tape saga, but sticky tape is pretty handy when it comes to removing the crumbs that get embedded in your keyboard. (You would never think of eating at the keyboard, would you?) Seriously, hold the tape in your hands and do a flossing-like thing between the keys. Hey, get the lint off your pants while you're at it.


Flash drive trees


Somehow flash drives multiply in our house like amoebas. Now don't laugh, but those inexpensive earring trees have a second life as a flash drive sorter. With your flash drives all hanging from the tree, you can pick the one that coordinates best with your wardrobe each day.

Got a favorite low-tech tip to share?

How to Get Free Support and Help from Microsoft for Installing Windows Vista SP1 Problems

Facing problems and errors while installing Windows Vista SP1? Well, help is on the way. Microsoft will provides free support and technical help for all problems and issues when installing Windows Vista SP1. The unlimited installation and compatibility support is available at no charge until March 18, 2009.
Normally, only customers who bought the retail product at higher price are eligible for free technical support and help from Microsoft. For the purpose of Windows Vista SP1 installation, all users of Windows Vista who wants to install the service pack and faces problems or errors, including users who get their copy of Windows Vista due to buying computer product from original equipment manufacturer (OEM), can get help directly from Microsoft.

The move to offer free support signifies the many errors that Windows Vista users face since the release of Windows Vista, and more recently, causing infinite and endless reboot loop on Windows Vista computer when attempts to roll out a pre-requisite update for Windows Vista SP1 via Windows Update. Not to mention more annoying application compatibility issue after upgrading to SP1.

More helps on Windows Vista SP1 can be found on Windows Vista Solution Center. All support requests on installing Windows Vista SP1 and its compatibility issues can be sent via email or online chat on Microsoft Help and Support site. E-mail support will be answered within response time of 24 hours, while individual online chat support, which only available from 5am to midnight Pacific Time on weekdays, and 6am to 6pm Pacific Time on weekends, has a waiting time of about 40 minutes.

For customers on Software Assurance Agreement, Professional Contract, TechNet Subscription, MSDN Subscription and Microsoft Partner Program (MSPP) licensing arrangement can also call (866) 234-6020 or (800) 892-5234 (TTY/TDD help requests with cost involves) from 5am to 9pm Pacific Time on weekdays and 6am to 3pm Pacific Time on weekends to get free unlimited support requests.

Microsoft said support will be handled on a case-by-case basis, and the user will always be advised if costs are involved, and whether enterprise customers will also receive support without cost will depend on their agreement.