Google announces Google Lens, an AI-powered visual search tool
At today's Google I/O 2017 conference keynote, Google introduces a new visual search tool coming to Google Assistant and Google Photos.
Topic: Visual search
Google testing mobile Shop the Look ads for apparel & home products
Looks are culled from partners including Polyvore and Curalate with related products featured in Shopping ads.
Pinterest Beefs Up Its Search Chops With VisualGraph Acquisition
Pinterest is looking to improve search and discovery on its website and mobile apps with the acquisition of a company called VisualGraph. It’s a two-person company and both employees — Kevin Jing and David Liu — are starting at Pinterest today. In a statement confirming the acquisition, Pinterest says the acquisition “will help us build […]
Bing’s Visual Search Is Gone (Has Been For A While, Actually)
The fact that almost no one noticed might be one reason why Bing has dropped its Visual Search feature … something that apparently happened months ago. To be clear, this isn’t traditional image search that we’re talking about; that’s still available at bing.com/images. We’re talking about the “Visual Search” tool/interface that Bing launched in 2009 […]
Bing Marries Native App, HTML5 In Upgraded Mobile Version
Microsoft has updated its iPhone and Android apps to make them more consistent with the features and user experience in the HTML5 version of Bing. The HTML5 mobile web version of Bing had actually “gotten ahead” of the native apps that Microsoft had developed. The upgraded Bing app is an interesting hybrid approach as Microsoft […]
Google Promotes Goggles As Aid To Traditional Marketing
Google is busy using product search and local search to build bridges between online research and offline transactions. Now with its visual search app, Goggles, the company is trying to promote the idea that marketers can use it to connect traditional media (e.g., print or outdoor ads) to “immersive” and dynamic online experiences. This is […]
Google Integrates Visual Search Into Mobile App For iPhone
Google Goggles is an imperfect but promising technology that allows users to search with their cameras instead of their keyboards. It’s a kind of parallel world to voice search. Both of these technologies attempt to make it much easier for users to use search on mobile devices and avoid having to manually key in text […]
Google, Bing & The Dance Of The iPhone
The iPhone may have been outsold last quarter by Android, but Apple’s phone remains at least for the time being the “it device” in the smartphone market. Google and Microsoft are both, let’s say, “ambivalent” about the iPhone. And, in some ways, Google and Microsoft/Bing have changed places vis-a-vis the handset. Of the three major […]
Plink: Google Buys Another Mobile Startup
No FTC review here: Google has acquired Plink a UK-based startup that offers specialized visual search (or augmented reality [sort of]) for art. You take a picture of an artwork or object d’art and information appears about the artist and/or the piece. As the site makes clear, PlinkArt was simply the first in an intended […]
Bing 2.0 “Visual Search” Launches, Allows Search By Pictures
Microsoft has unveiled Bing 2.0 at TechCrunch50 today, also known as Bing Visual Search, which allows people to “search by picture.” After much speculation following Microsoft’s annual meeting last week in Seattle, many had expected to see an update to Bing Maps, integrating Silverlight technology to display images of local businesses and locations within map […]
Visual Search The Future? Spare Me The Eye Candy
About two years ago, I wrote an article called Why Search Sucks & You Won’t Fix It The Way You Think. In it, I explained various ways people have tried to make search "visual" and why those have largely failed. That’s mainly because "list view" or "10 blue links" still works for lots of search […]
Speculating About The Visual Future Of Search Results
Danny has written extensively about the past and potential future of search. And this past year we saw the introduction of “blended” or “universal” search. Among other developments, search results became much more “multi-media” and visual. In particular, video became part of organic and, most recently, paid search results. Accordingly, I believe that the future […]
Quintura For Kids Launched
I discussed Quintura in November – if you recall it’s a search engine that provides searchers with a tag cloud, which if they mouse over the tags it will display results. Well, today they launched Quintura for kids as a beta release. It works along the same lines as the adult version, with a search […]