Patent ID: 8885942

Claim:
An object associating device comprising: a non-transitory memory device that stores a program and includes storage unit storing therein a plurality of contents and a plurality of generation time information pieces in one-to-one correspondence, each generation time information piece indicating time at which the corresponding content was generated; and a processing device that executes the program to cause the object associating device to operate as: a categorizing unit configured to categorize objects into groups including a first group and a second group according to the generation time information pieces and similarity of the objects, the objects being included in contents corresponding to generation time information pieces each indicating time within a first period and a second period that partially overlap each other, the first group being composed of objects that are included in contents corresponding to generation time information pieces each indicating time within the first period and are similar to each other, and the second group being composed of objects that are included in contents corresponding to generation time information pieces each indicating time within the second period and are similar to each other; an associating unit configured to, when a number of objects belonging to both the first group and the second group is greater than or equal to a predetermined number, associate the objects belonging to the first group with the objects belonging to the second group as objects indicating a same entity; and an extracting unit, wherein the contents are images, wherein the extracting unit is configured to detect an object included in each of the images, and extract a feature value of each of the objects thus detected, wherein the categorizing unit categorizes the objects with use of the feature value of each of the objects, and wherein the program causes the object associating device to further operate as a determination unit configured to determine the first period and the second period, such that (i) a total number of objects is a fixed number greater than or equal to one in an overlapping period in which the first period and the second period partially overlap each other, the objects being included in images corresponding to generation time information pieces each indicating time within the overlapping period, (ii) the total number of objects is greater than the fixed number in the first period, the objects being included in images corresponding to generation time information pieces each indicating time within the first period, and (iii) the total number of objects is greater than the fixed number in the second period, the objects being included in images corresponding to generation time information pieces each indicating time within the second period.