FACE SEARCH IN PERSONALS

• US 20090299961A1
• Filed: 05/27/2008
• Published: 12/03/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/27/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Match Group, LLC (Match Group, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Lo, Kin Man
• Granted Patent: US 9,753,948 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/583 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 18/2135 based on approximation criteria, e.g. principal component analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/7715 Feature extraction, e.g. by transforming the feature space, e.g. multi-dimensional scaling [MDS]; Mappings, e.g. subspace methods
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/172 Classification, e.g. identification

Abstract

A device, system and method to enable searching of personal profiles in the context of on-line dating that includes the ability to determine the personal profiles that have images that most closely resemble a target image.

Claims

1. A network device to manage communications over a network, comprising:

a transceiver to send and receive data over a network; and

a processor that is operative to enable actions for;

receiving a request to search personal profiles, the request including a personal characteristic and a target image;

calculating a reduced image data set for the target image;

retrieving a subset of reduced image data sets associated with the personal characteristic;

determining a similarity between the reduced image data set for the target image and the subset of reduced image data sets associated with the personal characteristic; and

sorting the subset of reduced image data sets associated with the personal characteristic according to the similarity to the reduced image data set of the target image and personal characteristic.

2. The network device of claim 1, wherein the processor is operative to enable further actions comprising:

determining a set of personal profiles that correspond to the sorted subset of reduced image data sets; and

providing at least part of a personal profile from the set of personal profiles based on the order of the sorting.

3. The network device of claim 1, wherein the reduced image data set for an image constitutes a reduced set of data that retains principal characteristics of the image.

4. The network device of claim 1, wherein the calculating of the reduced image data set for an image further comprises:

calculating a face space multiplier;

processing the target image to produce a mean subtracted, normalized target image; and

calculating the reduced image data set for the target image by multiplying the face space multiplier by the mean subtracted, normalized target image.

5. The network device of claim 4, wherein the face space multiplier contains a number of eigenvectors.

6. The network device of claim 5, wherein the number of eigenvectors in the face space multiplier is substantially less than the total possible number of eigenvectors.

7. The network device of claim 4, wherein the face space multiplier is calculated prior to receiving the request to search personal profiles.

8. A method for managing a personal profile search over a network, comprising:

receiving a request to search personal profiles including a personal characteristic and a target image;

determining a reduced set of data that is representative of the target image;

determining the correlation between the reduced set of data and a previously stored reduced set of data;

sorting the previously stored reduced set of data based on the personal characteristic and the correlation between the reduced set of data and the previously stored reduced set of data; and

providing one or more personal profiles that are associated with the sorted previously stored reduced set of data based at least on the results of the sorting.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the step of retrieving the previously stored reduced set of data representative of the target image includes selecting the set of data based on the personal characteristic.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein:

the target image has a number of data points;

the reduced set of data has a number of data points which is less than the number of data points contained in the target image; and

the number of data points of the reduced set of data is set to permit computing the results of the sorting substantially in real time.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein:

the target image has a number of data points;

the reduced set of data has a number of data points which is less than the number of data points contained in the image; and

the number of data points of the reduced set of data used to perform the comparing and sorting steps is dependent on availability of system resources.

12. A system for managing a personal profile search over a network, comprising:

a plurality of client devices, wherein each client device is configured to receive and send messages over the network; and

a network device that is in communication with the plurality of client devices, and is configured and arranged to perform actions, including;

receiving a request for a personal profile search from one client device in the plurality of client devices, with the request having a personal characteristic and a target image that includes features of a person;

querying a personal profile database for personal profiles that contain the personal characteristic;

comparing the target image against digitized images associated with the personal profiles that match the personal characteristic to determine which of the digitized images most closely resemble the target image;

sorting the digitized images based on the resemblance to the target image;

providing to the client device at least part of a personal profile that corresponds to at least one of the sorted digitized images.

13. The system of claim 12, further comprising:

calculating a percentage of correlation between the digitized image and the target image; and

transmitting the percentage of correlation to the client device.

14. A client device to manage communications over a network, comprising:

a transceiver to send and receive data over a network; and

a processor that is operative to perform actions, comprising;

receiving a request for a personals search including a personal characteristic and a target image;

sending the request to a network device for selection of one or more personal profiles that contain the personal characteristic and an image that resembles the target image; and

providing one or more personal profiles that contain the personal characteristic and the image that is calculated by the network device to resemble the target image.

15. The client device of claim 14, wherein the target image is provided by a camera integrated into the client device.

16. The client device of claim 14, further comprising:

providing the percentage of correlation between the target image and the image that resembles the target image from the personal profiles.