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Refine Pinterest Lens visual searches with text suggestions
2017 was a good year for Pinterest Lens users. Whether the feature helps you find recipes based on your brunch pics, offer style tips from the clothes you already own or gave you a hand with your Target shopping, the company's visual search is handy for a lot of things. In fact, Pinterest says Lens powers over 600 million of those searches monthly, and twice as many folks are using it every day compared to six months ago.
Pinterest hires Google computer vision expert to sort your Pins
Pinterest is very committed to improving its search technology through AI -- so committed, in fact, that it just hired one of the foremost experts in the field. The social network has announced that it's recruiting Chuck Rosenberg, Google's AI vision research leader, to become its Head of Computer Vision. He spent just shy of 14 years at Google and was responsible for a number of major AI-related efforts, including the first large deployment of an image-focused deep learning network.
Zooming photos is finally a thing for image-driven Pinterest
Pinterest is adding a couple of new features to help you get more use out of it. First, the app now (finally) allows you to pinch to zoom in on Pins, which it said in a blog post is one of its most requested features. Not surprising as it has been building itself to be a visual search engine and the lack of zooming ability has been noticeably absent. It has also tweaked its visual search tool, which lets you select an object within a Pin and find items that are similar. The visual search button has been moved and made to be more noticeable. Pinterest says that in tests, 70 percent more people used the tool after the changes were made. Finally, those using visual searches through Chrome don't need to have a Pinterest account to do so any longer.
Pinterest Lens makes fab outfits from clothes you already own
Putting outfits together is fun, but it could also be irritating to do every single day. Something like Cher's virtual wardrobe in Clueless could help -- or Pinterest Lens, which the social network has just upgraded to be a much better stylist. The company says it made major improvements to give its image recognition tool the capability to make outfits based on specific pieces of clothing or accessories you already own. If you have a denim jacket that you don't know what to do with, for instance, you can upload a picture and look at the sample OOTDs Lens shows you. The tool can also recommend new clothes to buy based on what you usually wear.
Pinterest Lens finds recipes based on your weekend brunch pics
Pinterest announced its image recognition tool back in February, but the company has already added a number of improvements since then. Today, the company is revealing the latest addition to Lens: full dish recognition. This means that when you snap a pic of your plate with the Pinterest app, the software will find full recipes for complete dishes rather than just options based on single ingredients. This update to Lens isn't all the company is doing for aspiring cooks though.
Pinterest's app can identify multiple items in one photo
Last year, Pinterest started encouraging its users to buy things with just a photo. Last February it gave everyone in the US access to its new Lens beta, which lets you search for pins of cool things with a snapshot. Today, Pinterest continues to improve its Lens feature with a new update that gives you the power to "lens" more than one thing at a time, snap QR codes and use app shortcuts on the iPhone, along with improvements to Lens' analysis.
