
Google is using AI to compress photos - rakibtg
http://qz.com/763649/google-is-working-on-a-way-for-ai-to-compress-your-photos-just-like-on-hbos-silicon-valley/
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samfisher83
The pied piper algorithm was Lossless. I don't think google's is like that.

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aaroninsf
Psychoacoustic masking was the premise of Sony's ATRAC compression scheme for
audio (used almost exclusively on the Minidisc format).

Today it'd get a press release describing that as AI no doubt...

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bbctol
In the example image the compression seems more noticeable on some parts of
the image than others, though this is probably due in part to my imagination.
It gives me a wacky (far-future) idea, though; what about combining a NN-based
compression system with data on eye tracking and attention, to vary the level
of detail in an image depending on salience?

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varikin
I believe John Carmack has discussed this idea in regard to VR. I haven't
actually tried current VR or tracked the development that closely to say
whether this is currently feasible or not, but VR with eye tracking is perfect
place for optimization. Why have high res textures and such pushed out to what
you are not looking at.

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dmreedy
This is super-interesting as a facet of the "Intelligence is Compression"
model. It's tempting to anthropomorphize and say that the system is building
an opinion about what an image, fundamentally, _is_. I'm inclined to believe
that these kinds of compressive abstractions are integral to higher-level
reasoning. Could you build a system with even better behavior, for example, if
you included text snippets describing the images, and a multi-modal model?

I'd be interested to see an analysis of the behaviors of this system compared
to more generative efforts, like autoencoders or Deep Dream.

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skrowl
It's also been discussed that they're using WebP instead of the older JPG /
PNG formats in Chrome Store / Hangouts / etc.

[https://techcrunch.com/2013/02/07/google-now-uses-its-own-
we...](https://techcrunch.com/2013/02/07/google-now-uses-its-own-webp-format-
instead-of-pngs-in-the-chrome-web-store/)

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inputcoffee
What is their Weissman score?

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IgorPartola
2.89. The theoretical limit of course.

