The Microsoft Garage is a way for small teams in Microsoft to create experimental apps and make them available to the public. We’ve already seen a few apps come out of Microsoft’s Garage, like Picturesque Lock Screen and Bing Torque for Android Wear, and today another app has emerged from the Garage.
Fetch! is a new iOS app — and website, for you non-iOS folks — that will try to guess the breed of a dog in a photo that you submit. The app uses Microsoft’s Project Oxford tech, the same behind its Mimicker Alarm, as well as machine learning. We’ve seen similar projects from Microsoft in the past, like How-Old.net and TwinsOrNot.net.
Once you load up Fetch! or What-Dog.net, you can submit a photo that you’ve already taken or snap one right there. Once submitted, the app or website will analyze your photo and guess its breed, as well as give a brief description of the breed that it thinks your dog is. Of course, you can submit photos of things other than dogs to see what the app says. I submitted a photo of my orange cat and the What-Dog.net site guessed that it was a Norwich Terrier, and a photo of myself got a result saying I'm a 70 percent match for a Labrador Retriever.
Fetch! and What-Dog.net are meant to be ways for Microsoft to show off Project Oxford and machine learning while also helping you to kill a few minutes and have some fun. It’s kind of neat when to see it correctly guess your dog breed, but even if you don’t have a dog, you can submit some photos of your friends to see if Microsoft’s tech thinks they look like a dog.
