Google PlaNet Identifies Location Of Old Photographs

Google has developed a program that can identify geographical location of any photograph without any geotags or GPS. The software is called Google PlaNet and is developed by Tobias Weyand and colleagues. Discovery News writes the tool does not occupies huge memory, but could easily fit on any smartphone.

The Google PlaNet software has segregated the globe into a grid and following a database of 91 million photographs it allocates to correct box using tagged data. The program compares the photo thereafter with the photographs it has in database.

Google scientists tested the new software with 2.3 million geotagged Flickr photos and as per Weyand the ability of PlaNet in recognizing locations of photographs is superior to well-traveled human too.

The scientists said, “We think PlaNet has an advantage over humans because it has seen many more places than any human can ever visit and has learned subtle cues of different scenes that are even hard for a well-traveled human to distinguish.”

In the test the scientists found the software correctly identified 48 percent of the cases.

The possible future uses of PlaNet software are not yet clear. However, as of now it can be said to be useful in revealing the locations of old photographs.