RETRIEVING CONTACT INFORMATION BASED ON IMAGE RECOGNITION SEARCHES

• US 20120294495A1
• Filed: 09/13/2011
• Published: 11/22/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/18/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Wren, Christopher R., Aharony, Nadav
• Granted Patent: US 8,818,049 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/118
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/434 using image data, e.g. images, photos, pictures taken by a user
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/31 User authentication
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/60 Protecting data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6263 during internet communication, e.g. revealing personal data from cookies
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/30 in albums, collections or shared content, e.g. social network photos or video
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/16 Human faces, e.g. facial parts, sketches or expressions
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/161 Detection; Localisation; Normalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/168 Feature extraction; Face representation
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/172 Classification, e.g. identification
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/179 metadata assisted face recognition
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/107 wherein the security policies are location-dependent, e.g. entities privileges depend on current location or allowing specific operations only from locally connected terminals

Abstract

A system and method for retrieving contact information based on image recognition searches is disclosed. A requestor takes a picture of a user or retrieves a storage image of a user and transmits the image to an image recognition module. The image recognition module identifies the user and determines whether the requestor can receive access to the user'"'"'s contact information based on permission rules. For example, the permission rule includes a requirement that the user and the requestor be sufficiently related on a social graph generated by a social network application. The permission rules can also include a requirement that the requestor have a predetermined proximity to the image. Once the permission rules are satisfied, the image recognition module transmits the user'"'"'s contact information to the requestor.

Claims

1. A method for transmitting contact information to a requestor comprising:

receiving from a requestor an image of at least one user;

identifying the user in the image;

retrieving permission rules associated with the identified user;

determining whether the permission rules are satisfied and that the requestor has permission to access the contact information; and

responsive to satisfying the permission rules, transmitting the contact information to the requestor.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the requestor captures an image of the user with a user device.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising retrieving a social graph from a social network that includes a relationship between the requestor and the user and wherein the permission rules include a requirement that the requestor and the user satisfy a predetermined relationship on the social graph.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of identifying the user in the image further comprises:

identifying facial features in the image;

comparing the facial features in the image to facial features of account holders; and

identifying users based on similarity of facial features.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of identifying the user in the image further comprises:

identifying account holders that are within a pre-determined proximity of the location of the image;

generating a list of the account holders for displaying to the requestor; and

receiving an identification of the user from the requestor.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of identifying the user in the image further comprises receiving an identification of the user from the requestor.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising capturing the image of the user on a user device.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising the step of generating metadata for the captured image, the metadata including at least one of a location of the image, a context of the image, a time of capturing the image and an audio sample at the time of capturing the image.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the contact information includes at least one of a name, an email address, a phone number, a home address, a work address, a profile uniform resource locator, a link to establish a relationship with the user on a social network application and an instant messaging handle.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising updating an address book with the contact information.

11. A system for transmitting contact information to a requestor comprising:

a controller coupled to an image parser, the controller for receiving an image of at least one user, transmitting the image to the image parser, receiving an identification of the user from the image parser, retrieving permission rules associated with the identified user, determining whether the permission rules are satisfied and that the requestor has permission to access the contact information and responsive to satisfying the permission rules, transmitting the contact information to the requestor; and

an image parser coupled to the controller, the image parser for receiving the image of at least one user and for identifying the user in the image.

12. The system of claim 11, further comprising a user device controlled by the requestor, the user device for capturing the image of the user and transmitting the image to the controller.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the user device updates an address book with the contact information.

14. The system of claim 11, further comprising a social network application for generating a social graph that includes a relationship between the requestor and the user and wherein the permission rules include a requirement that the requestor and the user satisfy a predetermined relationship on the social graph.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the social network application is stored on a different server than the image parser and the controller.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the image parser identifies facial features in the image, compares the facial features in the image to facial features of account holders and identifies users based on similarity of facial features.

17. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

a metadata engine that is coupled to the controller, the metadata engine for identifying account holders that are within a pre-determined proximity of the location of the image.

18. The system of claim 12, wherein the user device generates metadata for the captured image, the metadata including at least one of a location of the image, a context of the image, a time of capturing the image and an audio sample at the time of capturing the image.

19. The system of claim 11, wherein the contact information includes at least one of a name, an email address, a phone number, a home address, a work address, a uniform resource locator profile, a link to establish a relationship with the user on a social network application and an instant messaging handle.

20. A computer program product comprising a computer useable medium including a computer readable program, wherein the computer readable program when executed on a computer causes the computer to:

receive from a requestor an image of at least one user;

identify the user in the image;

retrieve permission rules associated with the identified user;

determine whether the permission rules are satisfied and that the requestor has permission to access the contact information; and

responsive to satisfying the permission rules, transmit the contact information to the requestor.