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This is undoubtedly incredibly impressive as a feat of engineering. Detecting codes on those sample images with >95% accuracy is no mean feat. No doubt Google u

This is undoubtedly incredibly impressive as a feat of engineering. Detecting codes on those sample images with >95% accuracy is no mean feat. No doubt Google uses its muscle for many worthier things than this, and the learning from this project will be applied to many more 'serious' problems. I think what this blog post triggers for some people is just a further step down the road from Google as it was - a tech first solutions later company that solved interesting problems because they were interesting - to Google of today/the future - a big corporation that acts pretty much like any other, but with a few neat tools in its toolbox.

amelius 9y ago
> This is undoubtedly incredibly impressive as a feat of engineering. For years, post offices around the world have been automatically recognizing handwritten text, which is of much poorer quality and consistency than those codes. Not sure what is new here. That it runs on a smartphone?
- fredley 9y ago
  Yes, and it runs on an image with a shadow occluding half the cap, held in someone's shaky hand, with low-contrast colouring. AFAIK, postal scanning is done in good lighting with known optical parameters of blue/black on white. The main part used for sorting the postal/zip code, which is relatively clear and in caps/numerals. Almost all mail has printed labels. Accuracy rates are not published, many people are hired to sort through the ones that cannot be automatically classified. It may not seem like a huge jump conceptually but in engineering terms it's a big deal.
vog 9y ago
> No doubt Google uses its muscle for many worthier things than this I hope this doesn't sound too negative, but since Google's main revenue is ads, "worthier things" ultimately means "improved ad targeting", doesn't it? In that case, it is not so different from the demonstrated application.
- corporateslave3 9y ago
  Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...

amelius 9y ago

> This is undoubtedly incredibly impressive as a feat of engineering. For years, post offices around the world have been automatically recognizing handwritten text, which is of much poorer quality and consistency than those codes. Not sure what is new here. That it runs on a smartphone?

fredley 9y ago
Yes, and it runs on an image with a shadow occluding half the cap, held in someone's shaky hand, with low-contrast colouring. AFAIK, postal scanning is done in good lighting with known optical parameters of blue/black on white. The main part used for sorting the postal/zip code, which is relatively clear and in caps/numerals. Almost all mail has printed labels. Accuracy rates are not published, many people are hired to sort through the ones that cannot be automatically classified. It may not seem like a huge jump conceptually but in engineering terms it's a big deal.

vog 9y ago

> No doubt Google uses its muscle for many worthier things than this I hope this doesn't sound too negative, but since Google's main revenue is ads, "worthier things" ultimately means "improved ad targeting", doesn't it? In that case, it is not so different from the demonstrated application.

corporateslave3 9y ago
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...