Every year at Google’s I/O tech giant unveils technology which makes it easier for humans to live a better life and think of “What kind of sorcery is this?”, the answer to which is always machine learning AI and its derivatives. The Google Assitance is now intelligent more than ever through major updates in deep learning and AI. There is a lot more google announced in that event which includes Android P, new Maps UI, seamless integration of Lens with camera app and few Google Photo improvements and few are already live.
Last year, Google Photos demonstrated the ability to automatically remove objects impeding the main subject of a photo. As an example, Google CEO Sundar Pichai showed their object removal algorithm automatically removing a chain link fence occluding a child playing baseball.
In typical Google fashion, the company said that the feature would roll out ‘soon’. Well, here we are a year later, and the feature is yet to see the light of day. It isn’t unusual for Google to announce something and completely forget about it, as it has happened multiple times before.
There are no official words from Google about their Photos obstruction removal feature. XDA Developers sat down with David Lieb, Product Lead for Google Photos, and Ben Greenwood, Product Manager for Google Photos to find out more about the ill-fated project.
XDA was told that object removal feature was teased in 2017 keynote and that was merely a demonstration of Google’s machine learning capabilities. Now the technology available and can be developed but they choose not to because they wanted to prioritize what is most important for users.
The team determined that object removal won’t be much of use to users as new machine learning feature introduces this week. It is more likely that this project will be getting resurrected sometime in near future but the chances are bleak.
