Google Photos Facial Recognition Works On Pets Like It Does On Humans

Good news for pet lovers. Google has launched a feature that makes it easier for users to find pet pictures in Google Photos.

Photos already has a facial recognition feature that recognizes faces of people inside photos. Using AI algorithms, it scans pictures for faces and group them if Google recognizes them.

Rolling out to most countries, an update to Photos enables it to also automatically seek pets and group them alongside humans. What's more, users can also label them by name, allowing for easier searches. This way, users won't have to type "dog" or "cat" like before.

Google has also allowed for search by animal emoji.

To view the photos, just type in the name of the pet into the search box and Photos will show them, just like how it usually does with people.

Users are also able to search for pets by breed. They can even type in the corresponding emoji to find the photos they want.

With the update, the section 'People' which has puts all recognized/labeled faces into one place, has also been renamed to 'People & Pets.'

"This is just the start," said Google. The company said that its face recognition algorithm should be able to differentiate between different breeds of animals, like Pug or Rottweiler. But it may have troubles for dogs like Dalmatians or recognizing two similar dogs inside one picture.

"If you have a number of pets that are the same breed (such as a few yellow Labs), you might need to help the app by removing photos of a misgrouped pet, so the app can tell Lassie from Fido."

Published: 
17/10/2017