Location based facial recognition on online social networks

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9946324-B2
Application number	US-201414323968-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 3, 2014
Priority date	Apr 16, 2014
Publication date	Apr 17, 2018
Grant date	Apr 17, 2018

Abstract

In one embodiment, a computing system may access an image associated with an online social network, where the image portrays at least a first person. The computing system may determine, for each user in a first set of users, a facial recognition score with respect to the first person portrayed in the image, where the facial recognition score is based on a facial representation associated with each user of the first set of users, where the facial representation associated with each user is compared with the image, and a comparison of a location history of each user with a location associated with the image. The computing system may generate one or more tag suggestions for the first person portrayed in the image based on the determined facial recognition scores.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising, by one or more computing systems:
receiving, by the one or more computing systems, a plurality of location histories, wherein each location history corresponds to a user of an online social network, wherein each location history is received by:
sending, at predetermined intervals, a request for a geographic location to a mobile-client system of the user;
receiving, from the mobile-client system of the user in response to the request, one or more location updates; and
consolidating the one or more location updates into the location history;

accessing, by the one or more computing systems, an image associated with the online social network, wherein the image is associated with a first user and portrays at least a first person;
determining, by the one or more computing systems, for each of a set of second users, a facial-recognition score with respect to the first person portrayed in the image, wherein the facial-recognition score is based at least in part on:
a facial-representation associated with each second user, wherein the facial-representation associated with each second user is compared with the image; and
a proximity coefficient indicating a measure of geographical proximity of the first user with respect to each second user, wherein the proximity coefficient is based on the location history of the first user and the location history of each second user, wherein:
the location history of the first user comprises a first set of location updates for a first period of time, each location update in the first set indicating a geographic location of the first user at a particular time within the first period of time;
the location history of the second user comprises a second set of location updates for the first period of time, each location update in the second set indicating a geographic location of the second user at a particular time within the first period of time; and
the proximity coefficient scales with an aggregate value based on, for each location update of the first set of location updates, the distance between a geographic location of the first user and a geographic location of the second user at a concurrent time over the first period of time;

generating, by the one or more computing systems, one or more tag suggestions for the first person portrayed in the image based at least in part on the determined facial-recognition scores, wherein each tag suggestion corresponds to a particular second user; and
sending, by the one or more computing systems, to a client system of a third user, instructions for presenting the one or more tag suggestions, each tag suggestion being selectable by the third user to tag the image with the second user corresponding to the tag suggestion.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising accessing a social graph comprising a plurality of nodes and a plurality of edges connecting the nodes, each of the edges between two of the nodes representing a single degree of separation between them, the nodes comprising:
a first node corresponding to the image; and
a plurality of second nodes corresponding to a plurality of users associated with the online social network, respectively.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein each location history comprises:
one or more geographic locations; and
one or more time stamps corresponding to each of the geographic locations.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining an affinity coefficient for each second user, wherein the facial-recognition score is further based on the affinity coefficient determined for the first user with respect to each second user.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the affinity coefficient is based at least in part on the proximity coefficient between the first user with respect to each second user.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the image is associated with a particular geographic location.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein a particular second user is eliminated from the tag suggestions if the location history of the particular second user does not correspond to the particular geographic location associated with the image.

8. The method of claim 6 , wherein the set of second users is ranked for generating the tag suggestions based on a match between the location history of a particular second user and the particular geographic location associated with the image.

9. The method of claim 6 , wherein the particular geographic location associated with the image comprises a location metadata associated with the image on the online social network.

10. The method of claim 6 , wherein the particular geographic location associated with the image comprises a location history of a user sharing the image on the online social network, or a location history of a user tagged in the image on the online social network.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein one particular second user having the greatest proximity coefficient is suggested for tagging.

12. The method of claim 6 , wherein the particular geographic location associated with the image comprises a location from which the third user shared the image on the online social network.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the location from which the third user shared the image on the online social network comprises the location associated with the image if the time interval between the time the image was created and the time the image was shared is below a threshold time interval.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tag suggestions are presented to the third user sharing the image on the online social network when the third user shares the image.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tag suggestions are presented to the third user as a typeahead suggestion.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein the generation of the tag suggestions are updated in response to a character string entered by the third user.

17. The method of claim 1 , further comprising receiving an indication of an interaction with the tag suggestions, and adjusting the methods for determining the facial-recognition score in response to the indication.

18. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tag suggestions for the image comprise a signal used to adjust generation of one or more tag suggestions for another image associated with the online social network.

19. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first user and the third user are the same user.

20. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first user and the third user are different users.

21. The method of claim 1 , wherein the proximity coefficient is a weighted combination of multiple subpart proximity coefficients over a period of time, each subpart proximity coefficient being calculated based on the distance between the geographic location of the first user and the geographic location of the second user and a total time that the first user and the second user were at their respective geographical locations.

22. One or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media embodying software that is operable when executed to:
receive a plurality of location histories, wherein each location history corresponds to a user of an online social network, wherein each location history is received by:
sending, at predetermined intervals, a request for a geographic location to a mobile-client system of the user;
receiving, from the mobile-client system of the user in response to the request, one or more location updates; and
consolidating the one or more location updates

Assignees

• Facebook Inc

Inventors

• Vaccari Andrea
• Jia Yuntao
• Ge Jun
• Moreels Pierre

Classifications

• G06Q10/40

  Business processes related to social networking or social networking services · CPC title

• H04L67/02

  based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP] · CPC title

• G06F1/3209 Primary

  Monitoring remote activity, e.g. over telephone lines or network connections · CPC title

• H04L65/403

  Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences (data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15) · CPC title

• H04W4/027

  using movement velocity, acceleration information · CPC title