Spitting Images

In an ongoing theme where I extol the virtues of those clever, clever people at Google, I shall today be hammering on about their photo storage software, Picasa.

Downloaded to the desktop, not only is it a nicely functioning image viewer/editor, it also offers oodles of online storage where you can geotag your photos to see them on Google Earth, or just keep them safe and accessible for a rainy day.

The really clever bit is it's face recognition tool.

Upload an album in a couple of minutes, and it will find all the faces in the photos, and ask you to name them. It'll clump together faces that it thinks are of the same person, and is often frighteningly accurate, even if hair and makeup vary enormously from one picture to the other, which mine normally does.

The more you upload and name, the better it gets at it.

However, you often get people lurking in the background of your pictures, so it will still find the face, and have a stab at guessing who it is - even though it's nobody it's ever seen before.

I was starting to find it quite amusing as it suggested random strangers who look nothing like any of my friends might be someone I know, based on it's previous experiences.

So in the name of titting about science, I thought I'd chuck a few random photos at it, and see who it thinks it is.

First off, what better substitute for real friends, then plastic ones.













This is a picture of - from left to right - Lyndsey, Kat, Sam, Morph, Kay, and Tanya.

I don't know what's more puzzling from this. The fact that it thought the cast of Friends all look like girls (or at least girls that I know), or the fact that Ali has married a David Schwimmer lookalike. Ethicon on the other hand, has done alright for himself.

There must be a celebrity that looks like a male friend?

How about this fine fella?



It's not Dale Winton - it's Ethicon of course!

And who's this?



Sorry Timbo. It's you. Still in shock from NCFCs relegation I see.

This one?



No it's not Brucie, but neither (rather surprisingly since I was trying to stitch him up) is it the Gingerfeck. If you think you look more like Brucie than Ronan does, I think I'd keep very quiet about it. I know who it thinks it is, but I'm not saying either.

Suffice to say, it is neither me or Mrsslippy. There are so many photos of us saved to it, you could shoot me in the dark with a balaclava on and it'd still know who I am.

Have a go for yourselves. And if you find a picture of a dodgy celebrity that it thinks is me, please let me know. I'm thinking of branching out and setting up a lookalike agency.

Are you free to 'do' Graham Timbo? I'm sure he'd like it.