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Google tests shoppable ads in image searches
Google is borrowing a few cues from Instagram and Pinterest to encourage more shopping in its search results. The internet giant is testing shoppable ads within image searches -- find a picture of your ideal desk and you can tap a shopping tag button to see basic details as well as a link to buy it. This only applies to sponsored ads, thankfully, so you don't have to worry about ads covering the images you want to see.
Google Lens comes to image search in the US
Back in September, Google promised to bring Lens to image search -- now, the feature is live in the US for English language queries. The object recognition techology can help you find out more about particular items within a photo you're looking at. If you want to try it out, do a Google search on mobile and go to the Images tab. Say, you want to look for a new sofa -- simply search for "sofas," go to Images and tap on one of the results. You'll find the new Lens icon underneath the photo next to the Share option, and tapping it will make dots appear on objects you can explore further.
eBay adds drag-and-drop ability to its image search tool
Last year, eBay launched a visual search capability for its mobile app that makes it possible to find items with pictures instead of words. Now, the online marketplace is making it even easier to use -- you don't even have to take screenshots of whatever it is you want to find anymore, because eBay will soon allow you to drag and drop images into its search bar. For instance, if you search for a "Hello Kitty purse" in the app and find one that catches your eye, you can drag that photo into the search bar to find listings featuring identical or similar items. It won't only give you a way to search for purchases quickly, but also to find the best deals on the website.
Google tests Pinterest-like layout for image search
Google hasn't been shy about borrowing cues from Pinterest. Its latest effort, however, may be more transparent than others. The company has confirmed to TechCrunch that it's testing a new Image Search on desktop with vertical results that will seem familiar if you're regularly browsing Pinterest for ideas. Each image now has captions along with badges describing what those images entail, such as a product or a video. And it won't surprise you to hear that clicking on a picture provides much, much more than before.
ASOS’ visual search tool is now available to all of its shoppers
Last August, retailer ASOS launched its Style Match tool in select markets. It lets users take a picture or upload an image -- whether it be a photo they've taken, a screenshot or something from a magazine -- and then search ASOS' products for clothing or accessories in that image. So for instance, if the shoes your favorite actor was wearing on their latest red carpet strike your fancy, you can take that image, tap the camera icon in the ASOS app search bar, upload the image, focus on the shoes and search. The app will bring up items ASOS sells that are similar to what you're looking for. Style Match has been largely limited to the UK so far, but today, ASOS is making Style Match available to all of its 16 million active customers on both iOS and Android.
Google will make copyright credits more apparent in image searches
Google has reached a deal to end Getty Images' European complaint over photo copyrights, and it's quite likely that you'll notice the effects. A new agreement between the two will see Google obtain a "multi-year" license for Getty's photos in its products in exchange for reforming its approach to copyright in image search. Google will do more to highlight copyright attribution for the photos you find, so you'll know whether or not you'd need to pay for a picture. It will also pull "view image" links for pictures to reduce the number of direct downloads.
'Untrained Eyes' explores how computers perceive you
If you search for "man" on Google, most of the image results you'll get are of white males looking confidently at the camera. "Woman," meanwhile, brings up pictures of women that appear to have been taken from a male gaze -- and yes, you guessed it, they're also predominately white. That lack of inclusion in machine learning is what "Untrained Eyes," an interactive art installation, aims to shed light on. The project, created by conceptual artist Glenn Kaino and actor/activist Jesse Williams, comes in the form of a sculpture that uses five mirrors and a Kinect to get its point across. Stand in front of it, wave and, within seconds, you'll be presented with an image that will "match" your appearance.
'Find It On eBay' searches with pictures instead of words
Finding stuff you actually want to buy on eBay is getting a whole lot easier thanks to the online shopping site's new Image Search function. Instead of trying every possible search term combination to come up with the exact thing you want, you can now simply upload a photo (Image Search) or click "Find It On eBay" when browsing another website, and the eBay app will surface relevant listings. Find It On eBay is now live on Android, while Image Search is live on both Android and iOS.
Google adds a dash of Pinterest with recipes and shopping
Google Image Search hasn't really been well-suited to competing with Pinterest. You could save images for later viewing or visit the source page, but you couldn't always tell what you would get when you would click through. That's changing today. Google has updated Image Search to not only identify when an image points to a special content, but to display some of that content with a single glance. If you look for food, for instance, you may see "recipe" badges and even the recipe itself once you tap the picture. It'll also highlight purchasable products, animated GIFs and videos.
Finding the dog pictures you want on Flickr just got easier
Flickr is finally catching up to the likes of Google Photos and Google Search. Now when you check out Yahoo's photo sharing site you can find all manner of visually similar pictures just by clicking the "..." button on an image. From there, you should find relevant and, as the name suggests, similar photos to what you had in mind. Yahoo explains that this uses computer vision to achieve its results. There's a lot in that post to digest, but the key takeaway is that with time, it'll get better at delivering the bloodhound photos you're craving. And if you want to try using Yahoo's Locally Optimized Product Quantization for your own sorting techniques, it's open source. Get crackin'!
Facebook's AI image search can 'see' what's in photos
If you forget to tag or add a description when uploading a photo or gallery to Facebook, it can be tough to find an image when you need it. Or at least it used to be. The social network revealed today that it built an AI image search system that can "see" things in your photos even when you forget to add the aforementioned identifiers. Facebook says the system uses its Lumos platform to understand the content of photos and videos and quickly sort through the items you've uploaded.
Google slips ads into its image search results
Google is going to extra lengths to make sure that you see its shopping links. The internet firm is introducing Shopping ads to image search results -- look for pictures of a nice couch and you may see a link to buy it. Google says this is largely about enabling more on-the-spot purchases, but there's no denying that this is partly about snubbing Amazon. After all, your first instinct may be to search Amazon when you spot that must-have item; you won't have to do that after today.
Pinterest's visual search tool can identify items in a pin
Lots of people turn to Pinterest for inspiration, but it can be a hassle to figure out who makes that whiskey barrel table. Now that the site has buyable pins and shopping pins, it has launched a visual search tool to make it easier to find (and buy) that thing you saw. The tool is dead simple to use -- when you see an object in a scene, like the light fixture shown above, you just select the search tool and draw a box around it. If it's in Pinterest's database, it'll show you the name and where to find it, then let you buy it directly from retailers like Neiman Marcus or Macy's, if available.
Google Image Search makes it easier to sort results by licensing rights
Google Image Search has allowed users to filter results based on how they're licensed since 2009, but the option remained hidden under an advanced options menu where few users ever look. Now, a request by law professor and Creative Commons founding member Lawrence Lessig has changed that. Bing added the option to filter by licensing rights last July with placement front and center, and Googler Matt Cutts tweeted that his company's search engine has a similar option, shown above. Perfect for bloggers in a hurry (cough) or anyone looking to whip up an image for a new meme, it can pick out images labeled for reuse, reuse with modification, or commercial variants of either.
Bing partners with Pinterest to add image collections to search results
It's no secret that Bing has been waging an uphill battle to stay relevant, and now, Microsoft is hoping that its partnership with Pinterest will be enough to win you over. The Bing team's latest effort combines its own search results with a new feature: image collections, a supplement that presents related Pinterest boards to the right of your main results. For example, an image search for "Pink cupcakes" will pull up a list of boards relevant to your interests. Clicking on one of them -- we opted for "Pretty in pink cupcakes" -- will take you to a new page that collects the user's pinned images along with a direct link to the board on Pinterest. The new feature is designed to introduce a social element to Bing by uniting collections curated by living, breathing humans with the search engine's algorithms. We don't know if it'll be enough to convince people to "Bing it" next time they're on the hunt for images, but we do know that we're now in desperate need of cupcakes.
Bing adds licensing rights refinement to image search
Here's a nice little feature for those of us who love to post images on the internet. Bing has added the ability to refine image results by license. The addition's simple enough to use -- just do a search and pull the appropriate license from a drop down on the top of the results page, alongside options for date, size and color. Selections include public domain and options like "free to modify, share and use," based on the Creative Commons licensing system, so there's no doubt as to precisely how you can incorporate them into your own posts. Google's had a similar option on its own search engine for some time -- albeit one's that's a bit less prominently displayed.
Google uses computer vision and machine learning to index your photos
Tags are so 2008. Google doesn't want you to waste time tagging your photos, except for the people in them. The web giant wants to be able to recognize more abstract concepts like "sunset" or "beach" automatically and attach that metadata without further input. In yet another post-I/O update, Google+ photos now uses computer vision and machine learning to identify objects and settings in your uploaded snapshots. You can simply search for "my photos of trees" or "Tim's photos of bikes" and get surprisingly accurate results, with nary a manually added tag in sight. You can perform the searches in Google+, obviously, but you can also execute your query from the standard Google search page. It's pretty neat, but sadly Mountain View seems to have forgotten what cats look like.
Microsoft makes Bing image search more social with one-click sharing to Pinterest
Companies know how important it is to make their products as friendly as can be with third-party social websites, and Microsoft, for one, has done a pretty fantastic job at making sure the team behind Bing's doing exactly that. To wit, the Surface maker is, as of today, also starting to cater to the Pinterest crowd, announcing that it's now allowing users of the recently redesigned site to share Bing image search findings via a simple click -- assuming you're logged in, naturally. The new sharing feature might seem like a rather minor one on paper, but for avid Pinners, it'll certainly come in handy as they can keep their precious boards stocked up with a little less effort. And, well, you know what that means: more cats.
Google Images gets redesigned, focuses on speed and metadata
Page and Co. have just unveiled a new look for Google Images that places a premium on metadata visibility, speed and slick looks. After gathering feedback from both users and webmasters, Google redesigned its image search to feature relevant information right next to images and speed load times by no longer loading source pages behind selected graphics. Mountain View also designed the new layout with keyboard surfing in mind, to boot. The new UI isn't available across the board quite yet, but the search titan says folks will start to see the refreshed UI in the next few days.
NEC's Gaziru takes image recognition to the cloud, looks a lot like Goggles (video)
While Google's remained relatively quiet on the Goggles front, NEC's picking up where that image recognition left off with its own product, dubbed Gaziru. Showcased at Wireless Japan 2012, the company's angling its service, which aims to leverage both hardware- and cloud-based processing for smartphone queries, towards enterprise and consumer markets, highlighting its usefulness across a range of services from marketing to search. Much like the aforementioned Mountain View version, users would need only to snap a picture of an object with their phones to receive relevant search data, access product manuals or, in one scenario, car and real estate listings. Given its planned commercial launch this June, it won't be long before we'll get a chance to test this software en vivo. For now, content yourself with a translated video tour after the break.
