Microsoft's Bing Launches Visual Search
Bing has a blog post about its new Visual Search feature. They argue that if you are looking for things like an actor you can't remember or a new car sometimes it is easier and smarter to search visually instead of entering text.
Visual Search is a new way to formulate and refine your search queries through imagery, particularly for sets of results that tend to be more structured. We call these data groupings galleries. Simply go to www.bing.com/visualsearch and install Silverlight if you don't have it already. What you'll see is an amazing new visual search experience. Visual Search allows you to quickly scroll through the galleries or do a one-click refinement using the quick tabs on the left, which are specifically relevant to the type of results you are browsing through.Bing has lots of visual search categories available include dog breeds, digital cameras, tv shows, U.S. politicians, MLB teams and yoga poses. You have to install Microsoft Silverlight to use visual search.
Now to find that movie you were looking for, click on "Movies" and scroll through the imagery to find "what's-his-name." Now that you found it, hover your mouse over the movie to view details including title, rating, reviews, and how much it grossed at the box office, all right under the search box. Think about how much time you saved using Visual Search.
Posted on September 27, 2009
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Add Bling to Your Graphics With Blingee
Blingee is a graphics tool that lets you add ridiculous bling to your photographs and graphics. You can find the help page here. Here's a Michael Bolton image that has been blinged up with Blingee.
Posted on September 26, 2008
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Google Wants Some Kid Doodles
Google always has interesting new versions of its logo for holidays and special events. Most of the Google doodles are created by Chief Google Doodler Dennis Hwang. Here is a video of Hwang doodling.Now Google is turning to students for help creating its doodles. They are running a Doodle 4 Google competition. The competition gives U.S. students in grades K-12 the opportunity to design a doodle for the Google homepage. Google says students will be asked to draw a doodle that best represents the theme "What if...?"
A panel of expert judges and Googlers will select 40 regional winners, who will be invited to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California, in May. Four national finalists will be announced as the result of a public vote. From there, Dennis will select one lucky student whose doodle will be on the Google homepage for a day in the U.S. This winner will also receive a $10,000 college scholarship and a technology grant for his or her school.Registration closes on 3/28/08, and entries must be postmarked by 4/12/08.
Posted on March 7, 2008
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Graphita Photo Bling
A new graphic editing tool called Graphita allows you to add captions, objects, bubbles, words and doodles to photographs. TechCrunch says the website lets people add bling to their photographs.
The company offers a Flash-based application that enables users to upload photos and add a personal touch via an easy to use toolset filled with stamps, text icons, captions, bubbles and more (Bubbleply does much the same for videos). The Graphita rich toolkit is easy to use to add, resize and customize each addition to a photo creation. The product is simplified for the masses and offers users the option of an authenticated or anonymous experience - thus positioning itself for higher adoption rates. Currently, Graphita is in closed beta and does not appear to support the addition of animated icons which might be something worth looking into implementing before its official launch in mid-May.Tools like Graphita should become popular as more people turn to them to add comments and bubbles to photographs they put on their blogs and social network profiles. Social networks will probably also begin to include more and more of these types of editing features. The social network site MyYearBook.com is known for including lots of blingy editing tools and features.
Upon customizing a photo, users can share them via email, print and send them back to their favorite photo sites (Flickr, MySpace, etc.), or even send them to photo pick-up locations (Costco, Walgreens, etc.). In addition, photo creations can be placed directly on consumer products like coffee mugs, tee shirts or other items. Graphita does not appear to offer its own social networking hooks but rather leverages existing products and services. However, registered users have the option to share uploaded photos in the public gallery or keep them private.
Posted on July 29, 2007
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HP Acquires Tabblo
HP has announced recently they would be acquiring Tabblo, a website that allows people to print graphics and photos off the Internet.
HP plans to leverage Tabblo's technologies to make printing from the web easier and more convenient than it is today. Tabblo's technology allows people to simply and efficiently arrange and print text, graphics and photos from the web. This is made possible by Tabblo's custom template engine, using an AJAX-enriched interface.Tabblo also makes it easier for people to create and print photo-related products such as photo cubes, photo books and posters using their own photographs.
HP plans to make this simple-to-use web-printing experience broadly available to people by working with other companies to integrate the technology into their websites. Together, HP and its partner companies will provide customers with a vastly improved web-based printing experience to meet the ever-growing need for simplified Internet-based printing.
"HP's goal is to make printing content from the web the easiest and best experience possible for people - whether they are printing a simple map or a book of their favorite blogs," said Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president, Imaging and Printing Group, HP. "By acquiring Tabblo's technology and making it available to companies that host popular websites, HP will be firmly on the path to becoming the print engine of the web."
Posted on April 25, 2007
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Add Moustaches, Santa Hats to Your Picture With PikiPimp
A new free online service called PikiPimp lets you modify a photograph online to add features like bikinis, hats, moustaches and hair styles. Go2Web2 lays out the five easy steps to pimpin your pic.
PikiPimp also has a Christmas category that lets you add antlers and Santa beards to your photograph.Upload your image from your hardrive. Edit your image (just drag&drop objects from the right side bar to your image) Manage your image - Rotate, flip, move, order, delete, etc.. Preview your image to see if you're happy with the results. Save image - You can save the file to your computer or copy an HTML code to use in your site or blog.
Posted on December 15, 2006
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CNET Launches AllYouCanUpload
CNET has launched a free, user-friendly image hosting website called AllYouCanUpload.com. AllYouCanUpload allows users to upload images to the website. Users can then call up their uploaded images elsewhere -- like on their blog, eBay listings or MySpace profile. See the site's FAQ for more details.
1. What is allyoucanupload.com?The site also works with CNET's WebShots, a photo sharing website.
Allyoucanupload.com is an online space where you can store (host) images to embed in pages elsewhere on the Internet.
2. How can I make use of this service?
Use allyoucanupload.com to add images to your other online spaces, such as online auctions (eBay), blogs (Blogger, TypePad), message boards, online classifieds, and social networking sites (Xanga, MySpace). You upload, we host, you post. It's that simple.
Posted on June 2, 2006
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Several Websites Focus on Sketches
There are several websites out there building websites based on sketching tools. SwarmSketch (via B2Day) is an ongoing online canvas that explores the possibilities of distributed design by the masses. Sketchplanet is a website that allows people to create, tags and store sketches. You can also add sketches from Sketchplanet to your weblog. And, of course, there is always the Etch-a-Sketch Online.Posted on November 1, 2005
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