Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Google Image Labeler
Google Image Labeler is a feature, in the form of a game, of Google Images that allows the user to label random images to help improve the quality of Google's image search results. It was online from 2006 to 2011 at http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/ (no longer available) and relaunched in 2016 at https://get.google.com/crowdsource/.
Luis von Ahn developed the ESP Game, a game in which two people were simultaneously given an image, with no way to communicate, other than knowing the matching label for each picture or the pass signal. The ESP Game had been licensed by Google in the form of the Google Image Labeler and launched this service, as a beta on August 31, 2006.[citation needed]
In 2006, Ahn stated that the game could "effectively label all Google indexed images in two months".
Players noticed various subtle changes in the game over time. In the earliest months, through about November 2006, players could see each other's guesses during play by mousing over the image. When "congenita abuse" started (see below) the player could see if their partner was using those terms, while the game was underway. The game was changed so that only at the end of the game could a player click "see partner's guesses" and learn what they had typed. "Congenita abuse" was finally stopped by changes in the structure of the game in February 2007. During the first few months of 2007, regular players grew to recognize a group of images that signified a "robot" partner, always with the same labels in the same order. This appeared to have changed as of about March 13, 2007. Suddenly most of the images seen were brand new, and the older images came with extensive off-limits lists.[citation needed]
By May 2007, there had been fundamental and substantial changes made to the game. Instead of 90 seconds, players had 2 minutes. Instead of 100 points per image, the score was varied to reward higher specificity. "Man" might get 50 points whereas "Bill Gates" might get 140 points. On August 7, 2007 another change was made: instead of simply showing the point values of each match as the match occurs, the value of each match was shown next to the matching word at the end of the game. This made it much easier to see the exact value of specific versus general labeling. A further change was observed on October 15, 2007. The new version was put into place and then seemed to have been withdrawn. In the new version, players saw only the image they were labeling, whereas in the old version the images were collected in the lower part of the screen as the game was being played. Other changes were subtle; for example, the score was in green letters in the new version and red in the old. The most significant change was that the clock froze during the image change, and that time used to be essentially subtracted from the two minutes of play. The changes appeared to have gone into full effect on October 18, 2007.[citation needed]
In September 2011, Google announced it would discontinue a number of its products, including Google Image Labeler, Aardvark, Desktop, Fast Flip, and Google Pack. The game ended on September 16, 2011, to the discontent of many of its users.[citation needed] The idea of the game survives as an art annotation game in ARTigo.
Google relaunched Image Labeler in 2016. The new service is less like a game. The user picks a category and they are shown a set of images. They go through each image and state whether it has been correctly categorised.
The user was randomly paired with a partner who was online and using the feature. Users could be registered players who accumulated a total score over all games played, or guests who played for one game at a time. Note that players from around the world were allowed to play, and both American and British English would be encountered (for example, soccer vs. football). When an uneven number of players were online, a player would play against a prerecorded set of words.
Hub AI
Google Image Labeler AI simulator
(@Google Image Labeler_simulator)
Google Image Labeler
Google Image Labeler is a feature, in the form of a game, of Google Images that allows the user to label random images to help improve the quality of Google's image search results. It was online from 2006 to 2011 at http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/ (no longer available) and relaunched in 2016 at https://get.google.com/crowdsource/.
Luis von Ahn developed the ESP Game, a game in which two people were simultaneously given an image, with no way to communicate, other than knowing the matching label for each picture or the pass signal. The ESP Game had been licensed by Google in the form of the Google Image Labeler and launched this service, as a beta on August 31, 2006.[citation needed]
In 2006, Ahn stated that the game could "effectively label all Google indexed images in two months".
Players noticed various subtle changes in the game over time. In the earliest months, through about November 2006, players could see each other's guesses during play by mousing over the image. When "congenita abuse" started (see below) the player could see if their partner was using those terms, while the game was underway. The game was changed so that only at the end of the game could a player click "see partner's guesses" and learn what they had typed. "Congenita abuse" was finally stopped by changes in the structure of the game in February 2007. During the first few months of 2007, regular players grew to recognize a group of images that signified a "robot" partner, always with the same labels in the same order. This appeared to have changed as of about March 13, 2007. Suddenly most of the images seen were brand new, and the older images came with extensive off-limits lists.[citation needed]
By May 2007, there had been fundamental and substantial changes made to the game. Instead of 90 seconds, players had 2 minutes. Instead of 100 points per image, the score was varied to reward higher specificity. "Man" might get 50 points whereas "Bill Gates" might get 140 points. On August 7, 2007 another change was made: instead of simply showing the point values of each match as the match occurs, the value of each match was shown next to the matching word at the end of the game. This made it much easier to see the exact value of specific versus general labeling. A further change was observed on October 15, 2007. The new version was put into place and then seemed to have been withdrawn. In the new version, players saw only the image they were labeling, whereas in the old version the images were collected in the lower part of the screen as the game was being played. Other changes were subtle; for example, the score was in green letters in the new version and red in the old. The most significant change was that the clock froze during the image change, and that time used to be essentially subtracted from the two minutes of play. The changes appeared to have gone into full effect on October 18, 2007.[citation needed]
In September 2011, Google announced it would discontinue a number of its products, including Google Image Labeler, Aardvark, Desktop, Fast Flip, and Google Pack. The game ended on September 16, 2011, to the discontent of many of its users.[citation needed] The idea of the game survives as an art annotation game in ARTigo.
Google relaunched Image Labeler in 2016. The new service is less like a game. The user picks a category and they are shown a set of images. They go through each image and state whether it has been correctly categorised.
The user was randomly paired with a partner who was online and using the feature. Users could be registered players who accumulated a total score over all games played, or guests who played for one game at a time. Note that players from around the world were allowed to play, and both American and British English would be encountered (for example, soccer vs. football). When an uneven number of players were online, a player would play against a prerecorded set of words.