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New Search Engine Inspired by Human Vision

WINEfindr.your.pocket.sommelier
That is, vision as in how we literally see objects around us. Everyone knows about Google, Yahoo, and the other search engines that we use today. No matter how good these search engines may be, though, they are still limited by the fact that we have to enter search terms to get results. That means we need to have a name, a word, or a phrase for what we are looking for.

Now what if there were a search engine that takes images as the search query? Say you’re at a supermarket and you find something in a nice package, but you are not sure if it is good. You can always go visit Google and enter the name of the product and look for reviews. Alternatively, you can use your smartphone to take a picture of the item and use it to search.

Is that really possible? With the new technology that Cortexica ((Cortexica)) is working on, searching this way just might become the norm soon. The basis of the technology is simple – it is “a bio-inspired vision system enabling intelligent image recognition using principles derived from the human visual cortex.” The platform is patented – of course – and it provides a whole new way of doing things, at least search-wise.

How do they do it? Much like how our vision system works, the VisualSearch platform recognizes objects by identifying key features. These key features remain unchanged in spite of differences in lighting, orientation, and size.

To see what this technology can actually do, they already have an iPhone app called WINEfindr, which can be found in the app store. Obviously, this app is limited to wines, but it showcases what can be done.

The technology is very new, but work continues to be done, making the possibility of visual searching becoming part of our routine very real. Exciting? Definitely! Something that will take the place of barcodes and QR codes? Perhaps.

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Recipe-Finder: The Easy Way to Search for Recipes

Looking for something to spice up your Christmas dinner? Here’s a cool new site which just might help you find that dish that will give that extra oomph to your Christmas meal: Recipe-Finder.

You can, of course, simply go to Google and look for a recipe. After all, Google knows everything, right? Then again, what if you do not know exactly what you are looking for? What if you only have certain ingredients in mind? What if you are thinking more about the prep time involved? Or maybe your guests are all health conscious, and you want to limit your dishes to healthy ones.

That’s where Recipe-Finder comes into the picture. This new recipe search engine makes everything easy for users to find recipes without having a very specific idea in mind. When you visit the homepage, you’ll see the mandatory search box, but more than that, you’ll receive a helping hand from links that can point you in the right direction. See the image below and you’ll know what I mean.
RF Home
If, at the beginning, you don’t know exactly what you are searching for, the categories and the links will give you a start.

In addition, the Advanced Search feature makes your search even more customized.
RF Advanced Search
As you can see, you can specify the calorie content, the cooking time, and the number of servings. These parameters certainly gives you more relevant results for your search!

You can also do an image search to check out the most enticing images of dishes. More than simply getting the images, though, if you hover on one, you will see a preview of the recipe, which is clickable and will also give you a quickview version.

Recipe-Finder is perhaps the largest recipe search engine in existence today, and it is developed by IOIX, a privately funded company that has contributors from Japan, Ukraine, Europe, and the Philippines. The team built this search engine from scratch, with currently 650,000 recipes indexed. That should be enough to give you an idea of what to cook for all those Christmas parties, shouldn’t it? 😉

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Google’s Zeitgeist 2010: Year in Review

Zeitgeist2010
Live curious. That’s what National Geographic kept telling me all day yesterday when the TV was on to serve as background noise. One practical application of that piece of advice is this: take a look at what people have been searching for the most in the past 11 months. I guess the guys at Google have been watching Nat Geo as well!

So they just released Zeitgeist 2010, which showcases the most popular searches in the past year.

Search – that is such a cold term that does not convey much emotion. If you think about it, though, what people from all over the world search for is indicative of what is happening in real life. Indeed, a line from the blog post yesterday says it all: “…most popular and fastest rising queries from the year to capture the joys, sorrows and curiosity that many of us felt—capturing the spirit of 2010.”

Call me sentimental, but I find 2010 to be one of those years that one doesn’t just put in the memory shelves to gather dust. Watch the video below, and most likely, you will experience similar emotions. Oh, and is it just me, or did Google try uber hard to include its vast array of services in the video? (I wouldn’t be surprised if advertising was part of their agenda.)

There is also a dedicated site for Zeitgeist 2010, wherein users can interactively discover more about the searches that shaped 2010 (or searches that were shaped by 2010, depends on how you want to look at it).

Google’s right. As we near the end of the year, one can’t help but wonder what 2011 will bring. I don’t know about you, but I feel optimistic. 🙂

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Slash the Web with Blekko, the New Search Engine

Contrary to what some people think, there is a search engine world outside of Google. And, on the first of November, another contender has joined the fray: Blekko.

The newest search engine on the block has been described as the offspring of an imaginary union between Google and Wikipedia. There is no such union (at this point), but Blekko exists in beta version, and it seems to hold a lot of promise.

The idea behind Blekko is that users are given the responsibility of tagging web pages (through the use of slashtags) that are indexed by the search engine. According to the founders, this makes the search engine results more relevant as humans weed out the unnecessary or irrelevant results which computer algorithms come up with. Other advantages that Blekko offers:

  • Designed to weed out spam
  • Does not include results from content farms
  • Will offer better results as more and more pages are tagged by users

Of course, the search engine also has features similar to what Google has, such as the ability to apply filters to one’s searches.

Blekko did not come out of nowhere, even if this might be the first time you are hearing about it. It is the brainchild of Rich Skrenta, who has been working on the search engine since 2007. He is also known for being the driving force behind the Open Directory Project. Blekko has caught the attention of venture capitalists and has received $24 million in funding from various sources (e.g., U.S. Venture Partners, CMEA Capital, and Marc Andreessen of Netscape fame).

Watch the video below to find out more about Blekko from Skrenta himself.

blekko: how to slash the web from blekko on Vimeo.

That was a pretty convincing demo, although I am not sure if the average search engine user will take to slashtags. What do you think? Will Blekko be a serious player in the world of search engines?

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Google Instant for Lazy Information Seekers

If you’re anything like me, you use Google to search for practically everything.  More so, you probably conduct searches hundreds of times within the day (and that may not be an exaggeration either).  How often have you hit enter/return before you’ve actually completed your search query?  Embarrassingly, that happens quite a lot to me. The good news is that it seems I am not alone in this.

It seems that quite a lot of people encounter the same issue – otherwise, the guys at Google wouldn’t have bothered to come up with Google Instant.  No, it is not coffee.  It’s not even noodles that come in cups.  What Google Instant is: search on the fly.

Imagine typing out your search query, and as you type, Google predicts what you are looking for. The search results will actually come out as you key in your search terms. It’s pretty much like the predictive text input on mobile phones, but I suppose much better. Here’s visual sampling of what Google Instant can do for you.

Pretty neat, huh? Based on the post in the Official Google Blog, the guys had to make use of new technologies in order to make Google Instant work. Some of the highlights:

  1. new caching systems
  2. ability to adaptively control the rate at which results are displayed
  3. optimization of page-rendering JavaScript (this is so that various web browsers can deal with the system)

As with many other new features/products of Google, not everyone has access to Google Instant yet. The same blog post says that it will be available on Chrome, Firefox, Safari and IE 8. Also, users in countries such as France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain and the U.K. will get to experience Instant first. Other countries will have access in the following months.