Researchers Find Online Photos are Worth Much More than 1,000 Words

The next time you pull out your smartphone and snap a photo of a landmark to upload to Facebook, think about the broader implications: Not only are you sharing your experience with your friends, but you’re contributing a small piece of data that could one day build a model of the world.

Researchers David Crandall of Indiana University and Noah Snavely of Cornell University are developing algorithms to create models of patterns based on the vast troves of photographs uploaded to Facebook, Flickr and other photo-sharing websites each day. Not only can their models be used to build 3D representations of a place, but they can also shed light on the people who visit those places.

“This analysis can also generate statistics about places, such as ranking landmarks by their popularity or studying which kinds of users visit which sites,” Crandall and Snavely wrote in an article that was published last month in the academic journal ACMQueue. “At a more local level, we can use automatic techniques from computer vision to produce strikingly accurate 3D models of a landmark, given a large number of 2D photos taken by many different users from many different vantage points."

Crandall and Snavely suggest that photo-sharing sites can be used to model human behavior at given points in time and history. The implications are huge for marketers and could offer an explanation as to why Facebook has made a recent push into expanding its photo and mobile offerings.

There are, of course, limitations to the techniques, which will likely be overcome in time. Photo collections have an extreme scale and an unstructured nature, the researchers said; many different people take photos with many different cameras from largely unknown viewpoints, which complicates the ability to build the models.

Building 3D Models

The paper demonstrates how Crandall and Snavely were able to use 6,500 photos publicly shared on Flickr to build a computer-simulated reconstruction of Old Town of Dubrovnik in Croatia.



The advantages of using social media are clear: Such models can be built at a relatively low cost and don’t require costly site visits or surveys. The problem faced by the researchers is in developing algorithms that can extract useful data from the “noisy data” that flows through the typical API stream.

Mapping the World

Most photo-sharing sites allow users to share more information than just the photo; the time and date a photo was shot, the location and even the type of camera used can be collected. Already, the researchers have been able to put together a list of the most-photographed places in the world (New York, London, San Francisco, Paris and Los Angeles round out the top five) and the five most-photographed landmarks (the Eiffel Tower, Trafalgar Square, Tate Modern, Big Ben and Notre Dame).

But the data can reveal so much more, including what types of people visit those places. Beyond that, algorithms are being developed that can effectively map how people travel through highly photographed places like Manhattan:



“We can infer a user’s social network with startling accuracy based only on such patterns,” the researchers wrote. “After observing that two people were at about the same place at about the same time on five distinct occasions, for example, the probability that they are friends is nearly 60%.”

To entice people to take more photos in places that aren’t photographed as frequently as, say, New York or Paris, the researchers have been experimenting with gamification. One such effort known as PhotoCity allowed them to collect 100,000 photos of the Cornell and University of Washington campuses by offering points to players who took photos at specific places.

“Imagine all of the world’s photos as coming from a ‘distributed camera,’ continually capturing images all around the world. Can this camera be calibrated to estimate the place and time each of these photos was taken?” the researchers concluded. “If so, we could start building a new kind of image search and analysis tool - one that would, for example, allow a scientist to find all images of Central Park over time in order to study changes in flowering times from year to year, or that would allow an engineer to find all available photos of a particular bridge online to determine why it collapsed. Gaining true understanding of the world from the sea of photos online could have a truly transformative impact.”

 

10 Most Expensive Celebrity Homes

The elegant homes of the celebrities include all the world-class amenities which one can only dream off.  From high-end mansions to luxury apartments, celebrities are spending millions to call these places as their home. These luxurious mansions are iconic and exemplary in their own way; they are also the perfect fusion of ‘Comfort and Luxury.’

 
1) Oprah Winfrey:

 
Valued at: $85 million

 
Oprah Winfrey, famously known for her women-empowering show, ‘Oprah,’ lives in one of the most expensive as well as amazing homes in the world. Her exclusive California estate was brought in the year 2001 for a whopping $55 million and since then the price of the Montecito estate has only increased. According to sources, the house is worth $85 million now. Her lavish home is lovingly called ‘Oasis,’ which is of 23,000 square feet in area. Winfrey’s home includes some attractive views along with lush gardens, gourmet kitchen, six bedrooms, a theatre, 14 bathrooms ,fire places and man-made lake filled with exotic fishes. This palatial house has a ‘garden teahouse’ which is one of the most attractive part that distinguishes this house from the others. To Winfrey, her home reflects her personality and also how she grew up, reports Sumitra Nair, Luxpresso.
2) Hugh Hefner:

 
Valued at - $54 Million

 
Hugh Hefner’s extravagant ‘Playboy Mansion’ is as impressive as its owner. This $54 million home is located in Holmby Hills in Los Angeles, California. This lavish ‘Playboy Mansion’ spreads over 21,987 square feet and was designed by the architect, Arthur R. Kelly, back in the year 1927. Hefner’s palatial abode features 22 rooms, swimming pool area with - bathhouse, sauna and grotto, waterfall, tennis courts, zoo and aviary (with a pet cemetery), game room, wine cellar and the famous yet elusive ‘Elvis Suite.’
3) Billy Joel:

 
Valued at- $35 million

 
Singer Billy Joel’s beach house is perhaps the hottest place to live. This uptown home is worth $35 million and spans over an area of 303,310 square feet. This house is located in La Gorce Island in Miami Beach, Florida. This beach facing stylish house is made up of materials like glass, stone and onyx. Also, this house is famous for onyx-studded bathrooms and a fireplace, which is hand-carved. Joel’s lavish house offers breathtaking views of the beach, which makes it the most exotic.
4) Jerry Sienfeld:

 
Valued at - $32 Million

 
Jerry Sienfeld, the famous stand-up comedian and wife Jessica bought singer Billy Joels’ home for whopping $32 million. This house is situated in The Hamptons (East), New York. This expensive property spans over 12 acres of land and features some interesting entities. It is renowned for its one-of-a-kind baseball field. This lavish house includes 22 garages, den, nursery room and playroom. This water-front house of Seinfeld also has a guesthouse and a pool. In the year 2007, OK magazine called his house the “best partying house in the Hamptons.”
5) Arnold Schwarzenegger:

 
Valued at-$23.5 million

 
Hollywood’s action hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger and his ex-wife Maria Shriver had a very lovely home in Brentwood County, California. This extravagant home was bought for a whopping of $18 million in 2003, and since then, the value of the property has only appreciated. Apparently worth $23.5 million now, this house is spread over 2.5 acres of land or over 14,500 square feet. This palatial abode features around 10 bathrooms, 7 bedrooms, tennis court, spa, a pool and duck pond with natural stream. This house has a Mediterranean-style compound and a full-sized guest house and also been said that the house is "totally private and secluded." This former couple’s home was also on the list of ‘elite homes on sale.’
6) Will Smith:

 
Valued at-$20 million

 
Hollywood celebrity couple Will and Jada Pinkett Smith’s dream house in California is one of the most spacious as well as expensive. Smith lovingly calls their house as ‘Calabasas Castle.’ This house is located in Santa Monica Mountains, Calabasas, California. The couple’s palatial house is so big that sometimes it jokingly said that it has its own zip code – the American version of our pin codes. This residential property spans over 63 acres of land and occupies an area of 11,000 square feet. Calabasas Castle has few distinct features such as a bar in every room of the house, golf course, tennis court, basketball court, a huge swimming pool and a man-made lake.

7) Shah Rukh Khan:

 
Valued At- 17.84 crore (approx)

 
Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan may have one spacious abode in Mumbai, but this doesn’t stop him from being the proud owner of a Signature Villa on ‘The Palm Jumeirah’ worth 17.84 crore. This expensive house, he claims it as a gift for his endorsement of the ‘The Palm Jumeirah,’ the man-made Island. This house features six bedrooms, two remote control car garages, a swimming pool and private access to the beach. This lavish villa in Dubai spreads over 8500 square feet and occupies 14000 square feet of plots. Khan likes to visit this villa with his family as the place provides privacy for his family.
8) Pink:

 
Valued At- $11.8 million

 
Singer Pink and her husband Carey Hart invested on a Malibu Mansion for $11.8 million, the time when the couple was expecting their first baby. This beautiful mansion is located in Malibu, California and spreads over 6800 square foot. This lavish property is near to the coastline and has six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a large swimming pool and five garages.

9) Jay Z and Beyonce:

Valued at-$20 million

This couple has a beautiful lavish home on a private island worth $20 million. The same island which singer Jay z gifted his pretty wife Beyonce on her 29^th birthday. This private island is located off-shore Florida and spreads over 12.5 acres of land. This expensive house features world-class amenities and offers breathtaking views of the landscape.

10) Salman Khan:

Valued at- 32 crore

Bollywood actor Salman Khan has recently invested on a triplex worth 32 crore, which is near to Shahrukh Khan’s house Mannat. Apparently, he has not shifted to his new home on a 28-storey building named ‘The Adress,’ which is also near to this current home at Galaxy apartments. This property spreads over 9763 square feet of area and is still under construction, according to sources.