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SINCE IT CAPTURES images of public spaces, Google Street View usually blurs out the faces of people and number places to protect people’s identities.
It uses software to do this automatically, but sometimes it can go a step too far as one unsuspecting animal found out.
When capturing street view images in a park in Cambridge last summer, Google’s software decided to blur out the face of a cow which wandered onto the path.
The action was spotted by The Guardian’s Opinion Editor David Shariatmadari. Its face is only blurred at that particular point, moving up or down the path will reveal the cow’s face, undoing the software’s hard work.
Naturally, this led to many people making numerous puns and jokes.
It’s not the first time an animal’s face has been blurred to protect its identity. Back in May, British police blurred out the faces of two sheep in a pun-heavy announcement. The photo had the caption “the identity of the lambs has been protected due to their age and vulnerability (it’s a joke!)”.
When asked about it, a spokesperson for Google told the BBC: ”We thought you were pulling the udder one when we herd the moos, but it’s clear that our automatic face-blurring technology has been a little overzealous.”
Of course, we don’t begrudge this cow milking its five minutes of fame.
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Something tells me Google will be milking this for the publicity it generates.
You would have some job trying to milk that ” cow”.
Cows got guns.
That cow is on a witness protection program . Very responsible of google to conceal the cows identity.
What a coward!
If you squint you can still make out who it is.
That`s not a cow, It`s a horse in witness protection ever since the burger scandal.
Haha!
This is so hilarious I’ve almost forgotten that Facebook sells its user’s data for profit!
But they blurred a cow’s face! Ha!
@Brinster: HA HA this is about Google, Facebook. They are two different companies.
Udderly appalling.
Bad joke & you had to go milk it
Sorry to hear they blurred your mom’s face.
#CowGate
My cat Mudd6 appears just outside the catflap looking very blurry on the latest update. Previously she appeared on a green in another part of the estate and it took me ages to find her.
*Muddy
I herd this one before!
Cowspiracy
Pull the udder one will ye
It mightn’t be any harm to prevent ear tag fraud in one sense….
I have no beef with that!
I recognize that cow. It’s Joan Burton.
So when I buy a steak next year, it’ll say what, traceable back to animal’s origin? The cow on Google?
Google have a steak in Ireland!
Now that’s how you beef up your security..
Sure the poor beast has been well & truly Staked out since!
Maybe this measure is why Wall St is more bullish on Google stock.
I think Google were right to blur it. As these cow tags have specific numbers relating to the Farmer. “But these can be seen on any farm”. Yes, but I’d say Google is covering it’s own backside by not providing this information, hence why it’s blurred.
Ok guys, less of the jokes, lets mooooooove on from this and take stock.
What a load of bull!
Maybe they thought the cow was Joan Burton looking to fall in again!
Not a cow, looks like a heifer.
That’s so amooooooooozing
obviously don’t work for politicians
Yeah right,pull the udder one!
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Stack and chips please
have your say