Tagging friends in Facebook photos may be somewhat of a chore, but that doesn’t mean we asked to be opted in to Facebook’s new facial-recognition photo-tagging feature. As we reported yesterday, Facebook quietly rolled out facial-recognition software “that will automate photo tagging and suggest friends to tag in your photos based on what they look like.”

Here’s how it works: when you or a Facebook friend uploads a photo, Facebook uses facial-recognition software to match faces in that photo with previous photos on Facebook in which you’ve been tagged. Facebook groups similar photos together and suggests names for tagging purposes. Granted, Facebook isn’t tagging photos itself, but it is certainly making the process easier for your friends to tag photos of you.

As Facebook says here, “Now if you upload pictures from your cousin’s wedding, we’ll group together pictures of the bride and suggest her name. Instead of typing her name 64 times, all you’ll need to do is click ‘Save’ to tag all of your cousin’s pictures at once.” That’s great, unless one of those 64 photos are of you at the end of the evening, slumped in a chair with your tie in your drink.
The introduction of facial recognition on Facebook has many users rightfully uneasy. Worse, Facebook has enabled it by default. Here’s how to disable it:

http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-20070045-285/how-to-disable-facial-recognition-in-facebook/

OMG there is only one answer to this..."I sure as hell hope so"

The reason is simple – in the end it wasn’t that much more efficient to have it instead of my laptop with me this week while traveling for work. Not a lot of difference in size and being Gen1, not a lot of difference in weight. And viewing my online credit card bill – ouch. So back she went.

I’m looking forward to seeing the RIM PlayBook in a week or so – while nowhere near as cool as the iPad in my opinion (uninformed though it is), it stands to fill more of my needs for small and light than did the iPad.

So there you have it.

Now I have to find something else to blog about

Here’s why:

-size matters – it turns out that even though the iPad is lighter than my MacBook, it’s still something to lug around and really, not that much smaller dimensions-wise. The PlayBook has a 7″ screen and that’s beginning to be pretty appealing.

-giving up the size won’t matter though because the PlayBook’s screen resolution is supposedly better – and I can believe that because I had one of those first MacSEs back in the mid-80s. Those screens were tiny but I never had any issue reading on them.

The iPad really is not the stand-alone piece of equipment that I was hoping I could turn it in to – I knew that it’s essentially an extension of my MacBook but the functionality is pretty limited. For example, I want to cull down my 10,000 photos and thought that while traveling for work, I could attack this project on the iPad, but it turns out that it’s really much easier to do it on my MacBook (unless someone can tell me differently?).

So I’m really torn – it’s only been a few days so I have another week to decide and I’ll be pretty embarrassed to go back to the store but…. the PlayBook seems pretty enticing at this point.

-both iPad and iPhone need to have latest system software installed – keep them up-to-date – for iPhone, Hotspot comes with OS4.3.1 and for iPad it’s 4.3 (see wikipedia for list of features: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_version_history)

-Hotspot does not need to be “activated” (with Rogers) if you have already activated tethering with them (which I had done)

-Hotspot essentially offers “tethering” by 3 means – wifi, bluetooth, USB

-make sure both iPad and iPhone are connected to each other – pairing, for bluetooth; or seeing the network for wifi (obviously, you can’t link iPhone and iPad with USB)

And seriously, it’s that easy.

Here’s some more info.

How to tell which version of OS you are running on your iPhone and iPad:
-Settings
–General
–About
–Version

How to turn on Hotspot:
-Settings
–General
–Network
–Personal Hotspot on/off

How to turn on Bluetooth:
-Settings
–General
–Bluetooth

Here’s why:

-OS 4 Hotspot on my iPhone provides wifi “tethering” to both iPad1 and iPad2;

-if I were to pay extra for the 3G version of either iPad, I decided that I wouldn’t use the data in the US or elsewhere anyway, as that would involve incurring high data-roaming fees (unless I were to buy a local SIM card, which I’d likely *not* do);

-I didn’t really care about cameras – if ever I wanted to do a video chat (highly unlikely given that I’m 50 years old and haven’t had the urge yet) then I’d do that with my Mac’s video iChat;

-the difference in weight between the two, didn’t matter enough to me – I mean, I love the iPad2 and the lighter feel of it and the cover is kinda cool but … for a hundred bucks less I could get a bigger 32GB version (while they were still to be had).

I thought I’d buy the 3G version and do the Roger’s data-share plan – I called to confirm that I could do this and they said yes, it’s $10/month to add to my iPhone data plan. So I actually stood with the iPad1 16GB 3G model in my hand (OK, I actually bought one open box at Best Buy) and got to my car and called immediately to activate this Roger’s Data Share plan for $10 that they had told me I could get, only to discover that it’s $30 because I have the 6GB data plan.

Weasels.

No wonder they call them Robbers and not Rogers.

So I went back in to Best Buy and exchanged the iPad1 16GB 3G version for iPad1 32 WiFi version and Bob’s your uncle.

The wifi works great with my home router but I haven’t tried Hotspot yet.

By the way, Robbers told me that since I already have tethering activated on my iPhone, I don’t need to activate Hotspot.

Hotspot is basically tethering by bluetooth, wifi or USB.

Now to learn the capabilities of this thing

I should add that I debated long and hard about the RIM PlayBook – it was such a very close 2nd choice and in the end the iPad won out only because I’m so mac-oriented at home. At this point, 24 hours in, while thrilled with my purchase, I wonder if I should have bought the PlayBook – the form factor (size) is pretty sweet…and I love my BB nearly as much as I love my iPhone…

Who knows, maybe one day spouse will inherit the iPad and I’ll get a PlayBook !

PlayBook to get Android Apps

]]> http://viewfrommyiphone.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/rim-playbook-to-get-android-apps/feed/ 0 viewfrommyiphone Screen shot 2011-03-26 at 12.28.37 AM