Semantically linked photos for building Visual Web

Summary form only given. The twenty-first century brought a new revolution in information technology. Capturing, storing, and sharing photos have now become easier than corresponding operations using text. This is a major change in the way information gets created, communicated, and consumed. According to estimates the number of photos captured in 2014 is 900 Billion! A photo represents a moment. The moment is usually related to an event at which more photos may have been captured. Each photo is taken at a place, with some associated emotions, may contain people and many objects that may also appear in other photos. Thus, a photo may be linked to many other photos along different dimensions. One may also create explicit links among photos or objects in photos. All these photos on the Web form a Visual Web that links photos with other photos and other information elements. This Visual Web has many new challenges. It also offers opportunities to address new societal issues and solve many difficult yet unsolved problems. In this paper, we will discuss nature of the Visual Web, technical challenges, and some interesting opportunities in this area.