Photo recognition software gives location

For a small fee, photo recognition software on a remote server works out precisely where you are, and sends back directions that will get you to your destination.

You are lost in a foreign city, you don't speak the language and you are late for your meeting. What do you do? Take out your cellphone, photograph the nearest building and press send.

For a small fee, photo recognition software on a remote server works out precisely where you are, and sends back directions that will get you to your destination. That, at least, is what two researchers at the University of Cambridge in the UK hope their software will one day be used for.
Roberto Cipolla and Duncan Robertson have developed a program that can match a photograph of a building to a database of images. The database contains a three-dimensional representation of the real-life street, so the software can work out where the user is standing to within one metre.

This is far better than existing systems can manage. GPS satellite positioning is accurate to 10 metres at best, and can be useless in cities where tall buildings shield the user from direct line of sight with the satellites. And positioning using cellphone base stations has a precision of between 50 and 100 metres.

"Telling people 'You are in the vicinity of X' is no good to man nor beast," says J.Craig