Major Change #1

As Joseph writes here and Tara write here , requiring email address to train the Riya system has some real downsides. We've heard this from a lot of folks. So in about two weeks we will make it optional (it will take us two weeks to fix it). Why did we do it originally? We wanted to create leverage for each user. Riya has to be trained on what people look like before it can find more. If we also captured email address, then when a new person joins, if they uploaded their address book, Riya could leverage the fact that someone had trained us on what "john@ojos-inc.com" look like and the new user would start their Ojos experience with people already recognized. In any event we heard feedback and are fixing it.

Comments

[JosephDP]

Munjal,

Thank you for the link back, and consideration of the user concerns surrounding the use of email addresses for identification. I understand that you have several issues on identity: user identification, training Riya image identification, and sharing/matching image identity.

I'm not a soAlphaItHurts user of Riya, so perhaps my question is off base, but I'll ask it anyway. I understood the Ojos technology as implemented in Riya to be some form of facial, visual or pattern recognition. Can the recognition data (or metadata or data analysis) be used as the source of truth for identity?

1) Create a Riya account, upload a picture of yourself for identification.

2) Anyone can train Riya to any search terms, from the generic (Grandma, Meme - in Italian, etc) to the specific (Given Name(s), Maiden Name, Family Name, Place of Birth) or the familiar (Nick Name) but...

3) Upload a photo and search on its unique characteristics, rather than search on a term that may or may not be meaningful to those others who uploaded pictures of the same person. Bringing together pictures of the same person at different ages (like my paternal grandmother coming to the USA at the age of 3 to when she died at the age of 96) might pose a problem, but not insurmountable.

Processing power a problem on such a solution? Think distributed grid of spare cycles from users' computers. ;-)

BTW, Meme Leni never had an email address.

-- Joseph