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I feel like this is some really compelling tech. It would be so amazing to build stuff with this in mind. I wouldn't be comfortable doing it, though. This sort

by jfoster 11y ago

I feel like this is some really compelling tech. It would be so amazing to build stuff with this in mind. I wouldn't be comfortable doing it, though. This sort of API is available only until Google decide that they don't want it to be available. There's not really anything close to equivalent that you could drop in to replace it if it were being shut down, the price were being hiked, or you had some sort of other issue with it. I'm not trying to pick on Google for shutting things down; I would feel similarly if this API were from Microsoft or Facebook. It's not the first time there's been an API that I think is really cool, but was very apprehensive about actually using for anything serious.

cfcef 11y ago
You're being paranoid for several reasons. First, you will presumably be keeping the classifications you get from the API (if for no other reason than $2/1000 can really add up and why would you do that to yourself?). Second, Google has historically always had very generous end-of-life announcements. Third, there are already a number of competitors, including the trained CNNs Google has already released. Fourth, even if there were no competitors nor pre-trained models, deep learning is increasingly accessible and you could learn to imitate a past ImageNet-winning CNN in Torch/Theano/Tensflow/etc and train it within a few weeks. Fifth, paid Google services tend to hang around longer. Sixth, machine learning is a major part of Google and they are increasingly rolling it out to their services and may well be using this API themselves, making closing it not such a great idea. So you're passing up what could be substantial benefits, Google isn't going to close it anytime soon, if they do you will have months of warning, and can easily replace it with a competitor or your own.
- jfoster 11y ago
  That makes sense. Cheers!
vgt 11y ago
There's a nice opinion on this from CloudTP: http://www.cloudtp.com/2016/01/21/dont-let-vendor-lock-in-fears-devalue-your-cloud-initiative/ http://www.cloudtp.com/2016/01/21/dont-let-vendor-lock-in-fe... TL;DR: You don't get the girl if you don't ask for a dance :)
onli 11y ago
There actually are other APIs, though with a smaller scope. For text extraction for example there is the OnDemand Api, https://dev.havenondemand.com/apis/ocrdocument#overview https://dev.havenondemand.com/apis/ocrdocument#overview, backed by HP. They also have logo detection. I'd be surprised if no replacement for the category detection exists. Though I admit I also hesitate to replace that API with the google offering for the one app where I actually use it. The results would probably be better, but I just got burned again from stuff shutting down, and I remember Google Reader. But the Vision Api looks cool.
- jfoster 11y ago
  I feel like there's a lot of scope for big companies to make commitments to do the right thing by developers building on top of their services. Stripe, for example, have a data portability clause where (subject to some conditions) they'll move customer data to other payment processors at your request. Funnily enough, that's the type of commitment that will make me never want to leave Stripe.
- saguppa 11y ago
  There's also this API by Microsoft Research. https://www.projectoxford.ai/ https://www.projectoxford.ai/
  - coleca 11y ago
    I will throw ours into the ring as well. If you need to understand emotional reaction on video sources, our API can fill in the gaps not currently filled by Google's Cloud Vision API: https://www.kairos.com/emotion-analysis-api https://www.kairos.com/emotion-analysis-api Disclosure: I'm CTO of Kairos.com
- joshvm 11y ago
  Clarifai are quite a big name in the classification field and that's pretty much all their API does.
Mithaldu 11y ago
I like how the announcement post already prepares for the end of "our incredibly journey" by saying "Google Cloud Vision API is our first step on the journey".
- abraae 11y ago
  Yes, a journey has an end, but hopefully it leaves us at a desirable destination.
mark242 11y ago
IBM's Watson service, provided via Bluemix, does this: https://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/developercloud/visual-recognition.html https://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/developerc...
mentat 11y ago
The question is, is this your core business? If you want to roll your own ML / CV API and your investors / customers will value you based on it, great. If it's not your core business, then SaaS / API interfaces save you time / money / ability to get into the market. Composability is what we do nowadays and you're always going to be exposed to risk. Recognize that risk and move on or go out of business trying to do it all yourself.
netinstructions 11y ago
If I were you I'd build a MVP with this API (or IBM Watson's API) and see how it goes. If your product/service starts to take off, you could start looking into implementing your own machine learning / computer vision algorithm, hoping one day it gets good enough to replace whatever API you bootstrapped the product/service with.
jneal 11y ago
I understand your apprehension because I feel the same way, to some degree. But I'm excited about the new types of tech that I can already imagine using this API. There are so many fascinating ideas that come to mind, and I'm usually not that creative of a person. I think Google understands how big this could be (well, why else do they do anything I suppose?). I guess you'd just have to put faith in them. I imagine those that do will build some amazing projects from this.
legohead 11y ago
I have all kinds of product ideas from this API, but have the same fears as you.. can't rely on an API. So for now, my best idea is to use it to build something fun with my kids. If only Google would adopt some sort of policy where they would let you download the dataset+code when they shut something off...
- jfoster 11y ago
  Yeah, if they could make some sort of commitment to open it up in the event that they no longer want to run it, problem solved. (mostly, at least; pricing adjustments could still be disruptive for certain applications)
- tommoor 11y ago
  Want to share some of those ideas? :)
cassidoo 11y ago
If you want to be more comfortable with it, one really cool API you should check out is Clarifai (someone else already mentioned it in this thread, but I'll bring it up again anyway). They're really highly regarded in terms of classification, and the API is pretty simple to use, too. Like if you just make a quick cURL request: curl -H "Authorization: Bearer {access_token}" --data-urlencode "url=YOUR_IMAGE_URL.jpg" "https://api.clarifai.com/v1/tag/" ...you get the top 20 tags for that image and their confidence levels, too. Their homepage at Clarifai.com has a pretty good demo that lets you see it in a more visual way.
kordless 11y ago
You are creating a double bind for yourself and others by posting these types of comments. Your comment indicates you want the experience making things with it which would be amazing, but you are also speculating (based on historical evidence) that Google may "take away" the amazing thing from you later. > I'm not trying to pick on Google for shutting things down People usually say what they are thinking. In this case, I can certainly appreciate and respect questioning what Google's actions will be in the future, but the problem at hand is that none of us can tell the future. By attempting to do so, and creating a situation where we literally believe two conflicting things at once, we get mired down in illogical arguments that end up making zero sense. Worse, when we post those illogical arguments, others get dragged into the dissonance and end up making similar arguments that make no sense and the result of that is others get lost in the mess we made. For example: > I think Google understands how big this could be (well, why else do they do anything I suppose?) Do we really know Google understands how big this could be, or is that just us wishing they wouldn't "shut it down later"? Both thoughts are speculative, at best. As for me, I have no way to know if I can trust Google will leave these APIs up for as long as I need them or will not change the methods in the APIs at some point breaking my code I've written to talk to it. The latter happens to me all the time! I realize this comment may stir some emotional responses. All I would ask is that we consider alternative ways of thinking about these illogically binding "feelings" and expand our awareness to the fact that what we really want is our software, regardless of who wrote it, to be open, transparent, trustworthy and capable of running wherever and whenever we want it, regardless of when that is. Obviously we have a long ways to go before that statement can be a reality. One can hope though!
jgeewax 11y ago
What about Clarifai.com ?
nl 11y ago
TensorFlow + TensorFlow Serving + Google ReCeption model plus optionally a SVN on ReCeption features for your custom detection. All that code and the pretrained model is Open Source. There's some engineering to glue it together and some extra work for the easier, non-image classification parts. There is also http://www.deepdetect.com http://www.deepdetect.com
- misiti3780 11y ago
  can you provide some links ?
  - dgacmu 11y ago
    https://www.tensorflow.org/ https://www.tensorflow.org/ https://www.tensorflow.org/versions/r0.7/tutorials/image_recognition/index.html https://www.tensorflow.org/versions/r0.7/tutorials/image_rec... http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2016/02/running-your-models-in-production-with.html http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2016/02/running-your-mode...
    - misiti3780 11y ago
      thanks!
  - nl 11y ago
    TensorFlow: https://www.tensorflow.org/ https://www.tensorflow.org/ TensorFlow Serving: https://github.com/tensorflow/serving https://github.com/tensorflow/serving ReCeption (actually they call in Inception v3. Not sure where I got the ReCeption name - though I'm sure I read it somewhere?): https://www.tensorflow.org/versions/r0.7/tutorials/image_recognition/index.html https://www.tensorflow.org/versions/r0.7/tutorials/image_rec... Using a SVN on neural network extracted features: http://blog.christianperone.com/2015/08/convolutional-neural-networks-and-feature-extraction-with-python/ http://blog.christianperone.com/2015/08/convolutional-neural... If you want a quick and dirty version here's some Python to create a web service that calls a Caffe based Image recognizer: https://gist.github.com/nlothian/c3519adb81b3452c1938 https://gist.github.com/nlothian/c3519adb81b3452c1938
blister 11y ago
Well, we've actually been using AlchemyAPI for this exact function for some time now. They were recently acquired by the IBM Watson team, so it's kind of a pain to get set up through them now (you have to go in through the Bluemix control panel to create an account and set up billing). They're probably not as accurate as Google, which is why I'm going to be spending tomorrow implementing this and comparing the results, but they are pretty darn good. http://alchemyapi.com http://alchemyapi.com
Houshalter 11y ago
Here is an analysis of Google projects that have been closed later: http://www.gwern.net/Google%20shutdowns http://www.gwern.net/Google%20shutdowns

by jfoster 11y ago

cfcef 11y ago

You're being paranoid for several reasons. First, you will presumably be keeping the classifications you get from the API (if for no other reason than $2/1000 can really add up and why would you do that to yourself?). Second, Google has historically always had very generous end-of-life announcements. Third, there are already a number of competitors, including the trained CNNs Google has already released. Fourth, even if there were no competitors nor pre-trained models, deep learning is increasingly accessible and you could learn to imitate a past ImageNet-winning CNN in Torch/Theano/Tensflow/etc and train it within a few weeks. Fifth, paid Google services tend to hang around longer. Sixth, machine learning is a major part of Google and they are increasingly rolling it out to their services and may well be using this API themselves, making closing it not such a great idea. So you're passing up what could be substantial benefits, Google isn't going to close it anytime soon, if they do you will have months of warning, and can easily replace it with a competitor or your own.

jfoster 11y ago
That makes sense. Cheers!

vgt 11y ago

There's a nice opinion on this from CloudTP: http://www.cloudtp.com/2016/01/21/dont-let-vendor-lock-in-fears-devalue-your-cloud-initiative/ http://www.cloudtp.com/2016/01/21/dont-let-vendor-lock-in-fe... TL;DR: You don't get the girl if you don't ask for a dance :)

onli 11y ago

There actually are other APIs, though with a smaller scope. For text extraction for example there is the OnDemand Api, https://dev.havenondemand.com/apis/ocrdocument#overview https://dev.havenondemand.com/apis/ocrdocument#overview, backed by HP. They also have logo detection. I'd be surprised if no replacement for the category detection exists. Though I admit I also hesitate to replace that API with the google offering for the one app where I actually use it. The results would probably be better, but I just got burned again from stuff shutting down, and I remember Google Reader. But the Vision Api looks cool.

jfoster 11y ago
I feel like there's a lot of scope for big companies to make commitments to do the right thing by developers building on top of their services. Stripe, for example, have a data portability clause where (subject to some conditions) they'll move customer data to other payment processors at your request. Funnily enough, that's the type of commitment that will make me never want to leave Stripe.
saguppa 11y ago
There's also this API by Microsoft Research. https://www.projectoxford.ai/ https://www.projectoxford.ai/
- coleca 11y ago
  I will throw ours into the ring as well. If you need to understand emotional reaction on video sources, our API can fill in the gaps not currently filled by Google's Cloud Vision API: https://www.kairos.com/emotion-analysis-api https://www.kairos.com/emotion-analysis-api Disclosure: I'm CTO of Kairos.com
joshvm 11y ago
Clarifai are quite a big name in the classification field and that's pretty much all their API does.

Mithaldu 11y ago

I like how the announcement post already prepares for the end of "our incredibly journey" by saying "Google Cloud Vision API is our first step on the journey".

abraae 11y ago
Yes, a journey has an end, but hopefully it leaves us at a desirable destination.

mark242 11y ago

IBM's Watson service, provided via Bluemix, does this: https://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/developercloud/visual-recognition.html https://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/developerc...

mentat 11y ago

The question is, is this your core business? If you want to roll your own ML / CV API and your investors / customers will value you based on it, great. If it's not your core business, then SaaS / API interfaces save you time / money / ability to get into the market. Composability is what we do nowadays and you're always going to be exposed to risk. Recognize that risk and move on or go out of business trying to do it all yourself.

netinstructions 11y ago

If I were you I'd build a MVP with this API (or IBM Watson's API) and see how it goes. If your product/service starts to take off, you could start looking into implementing your own machine learning / computer vision algorithm, hoping one day it gets good enough to replace whatever API you bootstrapped the product/service with.

jneal 11y ago

I understand your apprehension because I feel the same way, to some degree. But I'm excited about the new types of tech that I can already imagine using this API. There are so many fascinating ideas that come to mind, and I'm usually not that creative of a person. I think Google understands how big this could be (well, why else do they do anything I suppose?). I guess you'd just have to put faith in them. I imagine those that do will build some amazing projects from this.

legohead 11y ago

I have all kinds of product ideas from this API, but have the same fears as you.. can't rely on an API. So for now, my best idea is to use it to build something fun with my kids. If only Google would adopt some sort of policy where they would let you download the dataset+code when they shut something off...

jfoster 11y ago
Yeah, if they could make some sort of commitment to open it up in the event that they no longer want to run it, problem solved. (mostly, at least; pricing adjustments could still be disruptive for certain applications)
tommoor 11y ago
Want to share some of those ideas? :)

cassidoo 11y ago

If you want to be more comfortable with it, one really cool API you should check out is Clarifai (someone else already mentioned it in this thread, but I'll bring it up again anyway). They're really highly regarded in terms of classification, and the API is pretty simple to use, too. Like if you just make a quick cURL request: curl -H "Authorization: Bearer {access_token}" --data-urlencode "url=YOUR_IMAGE_URL.jpg" "https://api.clarifai.com/v1/tag/" ...you get the top 20 tags for that image and their confidence levels, too. Their homepage at Clarifai.com has a pretty good demo that lets you see it in a more visual way.

kordless 11y ago

You are creating a double bind for yourself and others by posting these types of comments. Your comment indicates you want the experience making things with it which would be amazing, but you are also speculating (based on historical evidence) that Google may "take away" the amazing thing from you later. > I'm not trying to pick on Google for shutting things down People usually say what they are thinking. In this case, I can certainly appreciate and respect questioning what Google's actions will be in the future, but the problem at hand is that none of us can tell the future. By attempting to do so, and creating a situation where we literally believe two conflicting things at once, we get mired down in illogical arguments that end up making zero sense. Worse, when we post those illogical arguments, others get dragged into the dissonance and end up making similar arguments that make no sense and the result of that is others get lost in the mess we made. For example: > I think Google understands how big this could be (well, why else do they do anything I suppose?) Do we really know Google understands how big this could be, or is that just us wishing they wouldn't "shut it down later"? Both thoughts are speculative, at best. As for me, I have no way to know if I can trust Google will leave these APIs up for as long as I need them or will not change the methods in the APIs at some point breaking my code I've written to talk to it. The latter happens to me all the time! I realize this comment may stir some emotional responses. All I would ask is that we consider alternative ways of thinking about these illogically binding "feelings" and expand our awareness to the fact that what we really want is our software, regardless of who wrote it, to be open, transparent, trustworthy and capable of running wherever and whenever we want it, regardless of when that is. Obviously we have a long ways to go before that statement can be a reality. One can hope though!

jgeewax 11y ago

What about Clarifai.com ?

nl 11y ago

TensorFlow + TensorFlow Serving + Google ReCeption model plus optionally a SVN on ReCeption features for your custom detection. All that code and the pretrained model is Open Source. There's some engineering to glue it together and some extra work for the easier, non-image classification parts. There is also http://www.deepdetect.com http://www.deepdetect.com

misiti3780 11y ago
can you provide some links ?
- dgacmu 11y ago
  https://www.tensorflow.org/ https://www.tensorflow.org/ https://www.tensorflow.org/versions/r0.7/tutorials/image_recognition/index.html https://www.tensorflow.org/versions/r0.7/tutorials/image_rec... http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2016/02/running-your-models-in-production-with.html http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2016/02/running-your-mode...
  - misiti3780 11y ago
    thanks!
- nl 11y ago
  TensorFlow: https://www.tensorflow.org/ https://www.tensorflow.org/ TensorFlow Serving: https://github.com/tensorflow/serving https://github.com/tensorflow/serving ReCeption (actually they call in Inception v3. Not sure where I got the ReCeption name - though I'm sure I read it somewhere?): https://www.tensorflow.org/versions/r0.7/tutorials/image_recognition/index.html https://www.tensorflow.org/versions/r0.7/tutorials/image_rec... Using a SVN on neural network extracted features: http://blog.christianperone.com/2015/08/convolutional-neural-networks-and-feature-extraction-with-python/ http://blog.christianperone.com/2015/08/convolutional-neural... If you want a quick and dirty version here's some Python to create a web service that calls a Caffe based Image recognizer: https://gist.github.com/nlothian/c3519adb81b3452c1938 https://gist.github.com/nlothian/c3519adb81b3452c1938

blister 11y ago

Well, we've actually been using AlchemyAPI for this exact function for some time now. They were recently acquired by the IBM Watson team, so it's kind of a pain to get set up through them now (you have to go in through the Bluemix control panel to create an account and set up billing). They're probably not as accurate as Google, which is why I'm going to be spending tomorrow implementing this and comparing the results, but they are pretty darn good. http://alchemyapi.com http://alchemyapi.com

Houshalter 11y ago

Here is an analysis of Google projects that have been closed later: http://www.gwern.net/Google%20shutdowns http://www.gwern.net/Google%20shutdowns