Riya Plans Sophisticated Image Search Engine
ZDNet reports that Riya, a photo sharing and tagging tool, is planning to add complex search tools, including similarity searches, in the future.
Based on some recent insights, Shah said that Riya is building a new type of photo search engine, one that finds similarities among images. "Riya started with facial recognition, but we will deliver public image search and do similarity, such as finding images similar to your location or girl friend," Shah said. "Click on any photo of any person and get similar results. You could have a picture of a car and find things that look like cars."These sounds like very interesting tools. The article also says that Riya will soon be hitting the 10 million photo mark. By comparison, Flickr, the largest photo sharing site, has over 100 million photos.
Similarity searches could be applied to dating sites or for finding similar images, such as a particular landmark, without explicit tagging. "The only technique today is linguistic query, and many things are hard to describe linguistically, such as a person. That's the challenge. It's easier to say 'more like this,' 'less like this,' and that's the direction we are heading," Shah said.
He doesn't expect to have his crawler and public search available any time soon, however. "There is core science to crack to actually run similarity across billions of photos and have any semblance of accuracy and speed," Shah said. But he doesn't expect his company's technology (he has filed some patents) to reach a level of accuracy that would be appealing to national security agencies. "The level of accuracy and scoping will only be useful to consumers," he said.
Posted on May 23, 2006
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