Image recognition is still one of those things that humans find easy to do but computers keep stumbling over. Some Google researchers published a paper describing progress they are making in teaching computers how to identify famous landmarks, which may eventually be applied more broadly to image search in general.
In a blog post, Jay Yagnik, the head of Cmputer Vision Research at Google, writes:
While we’ve gone a long way towards unlocking the information stored in text on the web, there’s still much work to be done unlocking the information stored in pixels.
Microsoft’s Photosynth is undeniably gorgeous – it lets users “walk” through various locales by stitching together thousands of user-submitted photos to create a virtual 3D environment. Unfortunately, up until today this experience has only been available to Windows users.
Cue Panoramio, a Spanish photo site that Google acquired in May 2007. Panoramio has just launched a new “Look Around” feature that seems like a toned down (but still impressive) version of Photosynth. And because it’s in Flash, you’ll be able to try it out on your Mac.
Users can even create their own “Look Around” destinations by taking 10-20 photos of their favorite places. Panoramio’s system indexes new photos and searches for matches every two weeks.
For more information and available destinations, check out Frank Taylor’s blog and the video below.
