If you are in the habit of taking snaps of your food then Im2Calories from Google could be used in the future to tell you how many calories you are scoffing on a daily basis.
This is a new project from the internet giant that they have only just filed a patent for. There are no plans to roll it out at the current time but it could be an interesting tool for weight watchers and health fans at some point in the future.
It works by seeing what food is on your plate and then working out how many calories are contained in it. You can then correct it when needed, allowing the system to learn and improve as you use it. The pictures it looks at don’t even need to be high resolution for it to pick out the ingredients and condiments included in it.
Could Be Used in Health Apps
Im2Calories uses a set of deep learning algorithms to do its job and it is hope that over time it will gain enough experience and user input to provide an accurate tool for counting calories. This means that it could end up getting built into health apps and other fitness tools.
Additionally, it is believed that the ability of the system to identify and interpret images cold lead to it getting used in a range of other types of applications too. For the time being, Google researcher Kevin Murphy is quoted as saying that the algorithms are still not accurate but that they will be working to minimise those inaccuracies.
Would you like Google to count your calories for you?
image couertesy of estetic.es
