A new 20% time Google project has just launched called Google Similar Images. It’s pretty self-explanatory — when you search for an image and find one close to what you’re looking for, Google can now find ones that it believes to be the same, or similar. This type of visual search is similar to what like.com has been doing for a while, but is potentially much more powerful with Google, as the search giant currently looks at hundreds of millions of pictures of just about anything you can imagine, across the web.
But it’s interesting that this is not done by way of optical recognition. That technology is what Apple, for example, is using in the newest version of iPhoto to look at faces in images and determine if other images contain the same people. Because Google already has its vast database of web images and a lot of metadata thanks to projects like the game in which you tag photos, and more recently, sorting images by color, it has a bunch of different data points it can work with to make Similar Images work.
Let’s take this new toy for a spin. “Apple” is a good query to test this because there is the aforementioned company Apple, as well as the fruit. When you find an image you are looking for after the initial query, it’s easy to click on “Similar images” and get more of the same. This is where Google really takes over and uses its technology to search for images it believes to be similar. For example, if I decide I want the silver version of the Apple logo, I’ll see this:
But maybe I want another version of the Apple logo shown on the initial page. In that case, I may see this:
Or maybe I decide that I don’t want an Apple logo at all. Maybe I just want a picture of an apple, the fruit. Then I may see this:
As you can see, the filtering works very well. Here’s an interview with Radhika Malpani, the director of engineering working on this project.
Watch more in the video from Google below:
wow. nice work google!
This is future of image search. Or present already?
Wow that’s pretty neat. If only there was something like that on youtube, which is ripe with re-uploads.
what is so apple about these chairs? – http://similar-...ges%3Fq%3Dapple
Were they gonna buy like and didnt?
This appears to increase the processing/load time of a Google Images search significantly. Anyone else notice this?
Wow, this is really great. What _will_ they think of next?
What a weird group of people in that video. Hilarious!
Love you Google!
You mean real people?
this is nothing.. well at least http://picturedig.com/ has been already been doing this.
Hey, what happened to my last blog comment?
Oh there it is…LOL
HAHA
It sure gives better results than GazoPa: http://www.gazopa.com (but they have more features, plus an iphone app)
Is this already integrated into Google images? I dont see the option on my screen.
No Shane, try here http://similar-...googlelabs.com/
Thanks. I saw you were looking at that page on the post but I wasnt sure if it was integrated yet. Still pretty cool. Lots of things to consider from an SEO standpoint of course. Btw I love the massive amount of posting you have been doing since you joined!
check out explore.zappos.com, shopping by “similarity”.
Live search has had this feature for a while as far as I know…
What’s Live search?
Another great feature from Google..
Submitted to Digg and Reddit
http://www.redd...ges_first_look/
and
http://digg.com/d1pCc8
I was looking for some creative wallpapers and look what I found..
http://similar-...Den%26ndsp%3D21
Got a trojan when I followed this link.
Stand alone app that does the same and better with your own personal image library. Google should talk to these guys.
http://www.getphotology.com/
Searched for similar images of robert scoble and got this.
http://bit.ly/6tgy2
Very interesting.
HA. Wow.
http://similar-...googlelabs.com/
Techcrunch is now a CAR
http://similar-...Fq%3Dtechcrunch
Funny.
images.live.com has had this for a long time.
test
flat.out.awesome!
I’m thinking this is heavy ont he metadata and the actual image bits are only a hint. Why else would a picture of Paris Hilton return other pictures of paris hilton in different poses instead of just some blond girl with the same pose. Or a horse.
This is actually something that’s been available on Live.com for a while. Live.com’s got a much better image search experience than google for images.
On live.com, just hover over one of the images and click on “show similar images”.
Not sure if this link will work, but here goes anyways… http://search.l...amp;FORM=MLIR7#
good looking chick
This is basically just TinEye, isn’t it?
http://www.tineye.com
First thought exactly. But there’s one tiny difference with this… Google is behind this so people actually know of it!
Great to see continuing innovation in the category: http://blogs.ms...her-images.aspx
Would be great if it wasn’t blocked at my workplace… stupid filters
I was just on the site, and I’m impressed, not just with the similar images but all of the other options that are available. Although, I must say, the similar image option is very very cool.
Google has been on fire these few days (especially the Gmail dev team)
I don’t see Twitter mentioned in article? How come?
That’s really really cool!
well that’s new… It sometimes help you track some images in your site that may have been used in other sites.
The display pane at the top is remarkably similar to yahoo’s one. *wink, wink*
This is just to catch up with yahoo with an extended feature they added. mark my words, the display pane at the top will find its way into normal searches in the next few months.
LIVE IMAGE SEARCH HAS BEEN DOING THIS FOR AGES…. wake up goog….
See the example of Jaguar…. When I click on Animal and then click on similar images, I see all animals…
http://www.Live...s.aspx?q=jaguar
Goog, you missed the train on this one…!!!
Finally.
Too Cool! I wish Ginipic would integrate this to their search – that would make the app a dream –
http://www.ginipic.com
Google should definitely make Ginipic – Google Images for Desktop
As the CEO of Picitup I really congratulate Google labs for this one.Finally image search is going mainstream..
We at Picitup have been offering the same services and much more since 2008 on our site and mainly white labeled. The diffrence is the our services are live rather than cached and work on smaller and more challenging image sets as well.
I agree this is superbly cool.. BUT does anyone care that all of the images are other people’s hard work? what will they think of next? They’re monetizing everything. I thought Google had got into my underwear until I looked close to reveal the Fruit of The Loom ! Google needs to give smaller guys a chance too… who’s going to beat out google or is this the way it will always be from now on, Google the defacto head of the pack? they’re pretty clever how they got us all addicted to thier products. Google! Google! Goodle! Godle! Godle! — Googel is God! omg
What’s the problem? It’s searching images that are publicly available… Now it’s easier for people to land on these sites. Wouldn’t the site owners rather have more visitors?
This isn’t strictly the first look. Google had this option for a short period of time a few years go, unannounced, and then it vanished after a while. I was very disappointed, but I’m glad it’s back. I use Tineye right now.
this is just a small improvement into Google Images search, shouldn’t be other image search services killer. better thing is reverse images search by http://tineye.com/ – it finds exact copies of the same image, find the same person or find stolen images, this is what i expected from Google.
Google has it’s hand in everything – I wonder how long it will take before were all driving Google cars with Googleyear tires on our way to the local McGoogles?
http://similar-...ges%3Fq%3Dapple
Result is not expected.
@guigo: tineye and google probably use the same technology (sift, but not exclusively), but with different goals. Tineye is focusing of precise recognition of specific parts of images, while google has the broader goal of building a multipurpose similarity search.
@van: that is a rather chaotic image, the more an image is missing a clear structure (think about a sunset, a mugshot, a flower) the harder is to recognize similarity.
@anyone: I’m working on a large scale image similarity search app too:
http://mipai.esuli.it
Agree with Esuli here. Have a look at the Xyggy beta image search at:
http://www.xyggy.com/image.php
Drag ONE or MORE images from the left-hand set of images into the search oval. The results will appear on the right.
Add additional images to the search by dragging and dropping more images. Remove images from the query by clicking on the image. Click the search oval to clear the search and start a new one.
Isn’t this what image search should be all about? Imagine being on any web page and dragging and dropping images from that page into the search oval to find similar images.
Dinesh
wow this is cool feature I agree this is superbly cool.. BUT does anyone care that all of the images are other people’s hard work? what will they think of next? They’re monetizing everything
Similar search is a real cool features but i’m generally found of flickr advance search.