Age guessing with Microsoft is FUN! Now give us your metadata Microsoft has unwrapped a metadata-slurping website powered by user-uploaded pictures which pretends to be a fun age-guessing game. While the page's inability to accurately guess users' ages might seem an amusing cock-up on Redmond's part, the machine learning boffins who set up the page are content to slurp up the JavaScript …
Dear el Reg,
You remember that whole storm a while back about rampant sexism in IT and how you covered stories about how horrible women had been trated in IT, concuring that it was horrible.
.... and then you grab the most provocative photo of a lady in her pants to promote a non-story in kind of the way you expect the Daily Fail sidebar to do..
may be not do that and may be less women will feel inclined to consider IT men a bunch of stereotypical d....
@AC
And of course this picture is sexist! There is only a woman represented! And of course the picture is racist! She is white! And it is against feminism because while the girl posed like that out of choice (which is an image available for use on such websites as the reg) she is just some brainwashed bimbo who is not representing the puritanical views of people such as this anonymous coward!
Not that the AC would be promoting the idea that a womans body is not hers to do with as she so choose? Nor would the AC be suggesting she should not have the freedom to take such an image? Nor suggesting that she should not be allowed a career in modelling if she so chooses? Nor suggesting her image should be banned from use in the regular news space which pays for her career choice?
Are you?
"you grab the most provocative photo of a lady in her pants"
As others have pointed out, it's Paris Hilton. The Reg has had a long-running relationship with the hotel heiress. We named our space-plane after her, put it in space, and broke a world record. She's a trope.
Working in the tech press, let alone the IT world, I've seen sexism first hand, and it's awful. I've seen PRs think it's a good idea to take women journalists out shopping rather than give them interviews. I've seen execs shut women out of conversations at the bar. I've seen inappropriate touching at dinner.
Running Paris Hilton through an AI algo isn't even close to it.
C.
One day you're growing a moustache, the next you're invading Poland.
Why start?
Really, why start down this road, knowing that others will only go "a little bit fuhrer", and it won't hurt?
If *you* don't stop this behaviour at the beginning, at the low level, how on earth can you criticise others? You fuel the fires of those who go further.
I presume you reported the cases of women being excluded and inappropriate touching (to the police)? What was the response?
diodesign, grow a pair, and don't support this.
My dearest sensitive AC, so alert to possible sin/offense/misrepresentation. Has it occurred to you, old chum, me ol china, that the humble techies that peruse this journal have to stand at the back of a long, long line of males and females in the queue to be considered for sexist behaviour? Every geek I have ever met in a 20 year IT career, has been concerned with "what do you know". Unless looking for a date, never gender. HR departments and CEOs, IMNSHO, have practiced gender discrimination far more than any publication using an image of an apparent bimbo for hire. I, for one, welcome the lovely Paris back to gracing the pages of this august publication after a too long an absence. Now to clean the trowel...
For what little anecdotal evidence is worth, the female techies in my corner of the IT empire are most intimidating, especially to earnest proponents of the "let me help you, your poor helpless female"' do-gooder/moral censor character.
As for M$ and uploading photos for free, who trusts any company with offices in the 5 Eyes territories ? As Snowden and Chelsea demonstrated, the tins hats were wrong. Reality is way worse so tell 'em nothing or as little as possible. The French Cardinal Richelieus comment still holds, so don't write a paragraph. Oh wait.
Saw this on the Torygraph site this morning (oh the shame) and considered giving it a try with a photo from my PC - but then I took a look at the T&Cs and decided not to:
"Microsoft does not claim ownership of any materials you provide to Microsoft (including feedback and suggestions) or post, upload, input, or submit to any Website Services for review by the general public, or by the members of any public or private community (collectively "Submissions"). However, by posting, uploading, inputting, providing, or submitting your Submission, you are granting Microsoft, its affiliated companies, and necessary sublicensees permission to use your Submission in connection with the operation of their Internet businesses (including, without limitation, all Microsoft services), including, without limitation, the license rights to: copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate, and reformat your Submission; to publish your name in connection with your Submission; and to sublicense such rights to any supplier of the Website Services."
This is presumably similar to the licence under which the Torygraph got its letter from "5000 businessmen" in support of the Conservatives - many of whom claimed that their names had appeared on it merely because they happened to look at the page.
Now try finding out about the owners of the Telegraph.
Alas no, only carnies we ever got up my way were either (a) in lorries with nothing but huge mechanical things designed to make you nervous (and spill your change), or (b) local bin men.
I tend to file them under Proof That Mankind Does Not Yet Deserve To (Nor Probably Ever Will) Become An Interstellar Society, along with the thriving existence of companies like the abovementioned, our slow progress in achieving species-wide peace and cooperation, and truck balls.
I did have a bit of a thing for Eddi Reader back then though...
This post has been deleted by its author
It only takes a minute to test it. Short answer; the algorithm can't see a face. It doesn't seem to test whether it can see butterflies.
Perhaps if someone could discover the original at high res and under better lighting conditions we could do a more objective test.
There's "let's guess your age", "your name", "your date of death" (that sounds like a winner) and others. I'm guessing that they're all grabbing even more data than FB. I have some friends that use FB and play these games/sites and then suddenly get upset by the obvious increase in spam emails and ads. But no, you can't talk sense to them because it's "all in fun".....
The metadata being sent is the same data that ALL browsers send to any web server, based on your browser settings. As for the photo metadata, well so what? There should be no personal information in there unless you specifically added it.
Why are you making some kind of a big deal out of it?
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