Google lays out plans for VisualRank image search
While image recognition (of some sort) by search engines is already here, the technology is set to vastly improve with the arrival of Google’s VisualRank, which will look for images based on searches for visual cues, rather than text, associated with an image.
Over the years, image search has been a significant challenge for Google and others, like start-ups Polar Rose and Riya, with most of the progress being in a fairly limited set of facial recognition characteristics. Last year, for instance, the company said that its Google Image Search could tell the difference between a picture with a face in it and a picture that lacked a face, though it couldn’t distinguish between one face and another.
