Apple iPhoto Can Differentiate Between Cats

When Apple's Phil Schiller told us that the company had picked the best facial recognition software they could find for the newest version of iPhoto, he obviously wasn't kidding.  Despite claims from the Apple representatives back at Macworld that iPhoto wouldn't recognize pets, early tests by MacLife suggests otherwise.  The app was capable of spotting their test subject – Lola the cat – with just as high accuracy as humans, after a little manual training.

The team first had to train iPhoto, manually selecting Lola in a few images before letting it loose on their full collection.  Once that had been done, though, the app could differentiate between Lola and other photographed felines, with ongoing confirmations adding to the software's skills.

They're now going to test it on dogs, to see whether it can work the same magic.  Frankly, I'm not that surprised.  After all, is a cat that much different from a particularly over-bearded person?