Computer Vision News - June 2016

the day or seasons of the year, it is possible to show those images superimposed on each other and a slider function will enable to compare pictures overlaid one on each other. This feature is automatic and can be seen on any pair of images. Needless to say, Solem is perfectly aware of the privacy issues that this and other Mapillary features might bring about. The app tries to automatically detect as much as possible sensible content, but some scenarios are very hard to understand for a computer, from a privacy point of view. This is why anybody can edit a photo on Mapillary , so it is possible to blur parts of the images they object to being visible or even hide the whole pic. It is also possible to report images to Mapillary’s staff so they intervene and take some kind of action. The whole process is intended to be as scalable as possible: the app operates algorithmically as much as it possibly can and if after that something still bothers the humans, they can fix it themselves or call someone else to fix it for them . Solem declares that some moderation is necessary, but nobody is spamming the system and human intervention is limited to reasonable requests to remove one specific image containing sensitive information. Solem relates that one of the fun aspects of the app which has been found by many is the possibility to share pictures from travels in interesting faraway places, by mapping them on Mapillary in order to be viewed by all. People put their phones and cameras on canoes, bikes, skateboards and even on dogs, so that the displayed pictures can be very diverse and original. Computer Vision News Application 7 “ Anybody can edit a photo, so it is possible to blur parts of the images or even hide the whole pic ”