General Computer Stuff

If you live in the USA you are likely seeing news reports of the new Facial Recognition tools the police are getting. For about US$3,000 per unit they get a smart phone thing that will take a picture and compare it to the a law enforcement database and provide an ID for the person in question. It is nearly instant ID.

What is not being covered is the fact that this technology is being made available to smart phone developers via an API. That means we are going to see the same ability appearing in apps.

ReadWriteWeb is reporting that the Apple is making facial recognition part of the iOS 5 operating system. No surprise as RWW was predicting this would happen back in January. The new facial detection tools were recently found on Apple’s Developer website.

Get more information here: Facial Recognition Comes to iOS 5 via New Developer Tools

This means that within 6 months to a year there will be a flood of these apps. Privacy advocates are going nuts. They are all worried about what law enforcement will do with the technology. One reported plan use is to post the face of a belligerent drunk police have been called to remove to all establishments that serve alcohol in the area. However, with this new tech I can see bar and restaurant owners doing this on their own.

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A recent article tells about Google+ users getting unlimited image storage on Google’s Picasa. See: Thanks to Google Plus, Picasa Gets Unlimited Storage for Photos & Videos, Also Better Tagging. I have used Picasa and it is pretty nice. Most of my use there has been for work. I may add it to my play accounts.

Of course how can anyone be someone without a Facebook page? See: Google Plus…the Facebook Page. Personally, I think this is funny.

Another article tells about someone finding code for games in the Google+ framework. See: Games, Questions & Shared Circles: Google Plus’s Next Big Features Discovered in its Code? So, I guess that tells us Google is going to make an improved clone of Facebook.

The general knowledge is that there are no invites to Google+ available. ReadWriteWeb.com is saying differently.

There is a way to invite people with Gmail addresses into Google+. Marshall Kirkpatrick invited 500 people in 20 minutes. Wow!

So, how does one do it? It seems you share something with someone by their email address. There is a time limit, only so many per hour or day or something. Everything was so vague I tracked down the source; a Jennifer 8. Here is her post.

I would love an invite from someone… 🙂 hint hint

nalates DOT u AT gmail DOT com

Subtle huh?

WARNING: As of this morning (7/1) Google has a note up that the service is overloaded. New signups are stalled. They say this will change soon.

An alternative viewpoint from Gwyneth Llewelyn’s tweat, Note to Google: Microsoft Had the Right Idea

This is a new social networking idea. With something like 90% of Facebook users unhappy with Facebook it is not surprising that someone is going to try and compete with Facebook. Google is going for it. For some time rumors have been that Google Circles would be an attempt to create a new social network. Now Google+ appears and it looks like it will be the project rumored to be Google Circles.

Google+ is in limited Beta, field testing as is said on the web site. Google+

If you take the interactive tour, you’ll see a menu item labeled Circles. As Google puts it, social networks are about sharing. The trick here, as Anthony Wiener found out, is sharing with just the ones you want. Circles allow one to easily create and control their groups. The interface is drag and drop. It makes Facebook’s processes look positively ancient. Drag a person to a circle certainly beats drop down menus.

I know from playing Facebook games where you must recruit people to advance that managing friends  gets tedious. Their posts and likes and stuff begin to clutter the wall so that it is hard to see what my friends are doing. Figuring out how to deal with all this is about as much fun as learning to use a new SL viewer.

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You may have noticed that it is nearly impossible to delete a Facebook account. Some believe it is impossible. However, on the ReadWriteWeb.com blog they have the steps needed to backup your profile and delete it.

See: How to (Actually) Delete Your Facebook Account

There are other ways. As one person has said, just post something politically incorrect and Facebook Staff will delete it for you. Another is to have a friend report you as a fake person, one using an alias. Another is to convince them you’re an avatar.