Comments on: Sherlock Holmes in the digital world

By: Peter Kim

Peter Kim — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 09:39:56 +0000

You think that Homeland Security and or the CIA are already working on this maybe?

By: Daric Snyder

Daric Snyder — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:20:54 +0000

Do you think we’ll miss public anonymity in the future?

The day when a stranger can snap a quick photo of me and instantly find out who I am, where I’m from and what I do doesn’t seem that far off. Maybe we’ll adjust once the technology is ubiquitous, but I think there could be a rough, spooky transition.

By: Jeremy Cherfas

Jeremy Cherfas — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:02:30 +0000

I don’t know Schazam, or how it works, but I do know that more than 30 years ago Denys Parsons published a book that could identify many thousands of tunes from the first few notes. Read about it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsons_code

OK, Parsons used the beginning of the tune alone, so you would have to catch the start of the song with your iPhone. But everything he did was coded by hand. Imagine simply applying the same algorithm to the entire tune digitally.

Nothing to do with your anthropological read-out, I know, but I just wanted to add a bit of history to the idea.

By: Henri Weijo

Henri Weijo — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 03:15:26 +0000

I think it kinda already exists. Check out the PhotoSynth demo on TED: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/blaise_aguera_y_arcas_demos_photosynth.html (if the URL is removed from this post, just Google “TED photosynth”. Midway through the presentation they show how image recognition has advanced a lot.

Also, check out services like Wikitude or Enkin on YouYube. They’re GPS and camera based services that will calculate where you are and point out on your phone’s screen what you are looking at right now. Especially Wikitude is impressive.

I know it’s not the same thing, but it’s in the same ballpark, somewhat.