So, my son and I helped close out the TechCrunch party. We got there at 11 and stayed until 1:15 a.m.
I, and a small group, were gathered around Riya CEO Munjal Shah. We were trying to find out if the rumors were true. He wouldn’t confirm nor deny any rumors that Riya was being sold to “G.”
Anyway, that means that we can still talk about Riya. Heheh. The brilliance of their concept lies not in the face detection, but in all the metadata they collect. At least that’s what Munjal told me. Turns out they look for other hints to recognize people in the photo. For instance, my son was wearing a wild tie-dyed shirt tonight. You would have been able to recognize my son by simply his shirt, even if you couldn’t see his face. So, Riya’s system stores both your face details and your shirt’s details.
There’s more, too. Lots of attention data is being passed back and forth. Of course that got Steve Gillmor to make a plea for Riya to join the Attention Trust. I’m starting to see a whole attention system that’s possible. I see that Nick Bradbury, who now is a key exec at NewsGator (he authored the most excellent FeedDemon) is talking about attention too.
Damn, I wish more people understood the implications of such a system.
Anyway, the ever present Scott Beale snapped a picture of Tara Hunt and Munjal hanging out together.
Oh, and I won’t even try to name all the geeks I saw at the party tonight. TechCrunch parties are really becoming a “must attend” thing in Silicon Valley.
