Google launches Similar Images in Google Labs

Google announced an interesting new feature this week in Google Labs called "Similar Images," which provides a kind of faceted search for images, narrowing the results to a manageable set of possibilities. Users enter an image search term, then when the results display, they click the Similar Images link under the picture they want. For example, if a search term like jaguar is used, that can return pictures of the car or the cat. Clicking the Similar Images link under the cat will show only pictures of the cat. Then, if someone only wants close ups of the head, he can click the Similar Images link under a head shot to narrow the list of results further.

I tested the new feature by entering a search for Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia. Then I clicked Similar Images under a picture of him in the middle of his big swing and got a page full of such pictures. But I also got a couple of results that clearly didn't belong, such as a basketball player (Dustin Pedroia is definitely not a basketball player) and a picture of a player from the Texas Rangers rounding third after hitting a home run.

This trial probably explains why the feature is in the labs and has not yet been mainstreamed into the image search application. But it does bode well for the future of image search. Image search is a lot more difficult than text search simply because it has much less text associated with it. A feature like this could help reduce a lot of the noise and help you focus in on the types of images you want, which could be very useful step forward in the evolution of image search.

For more information:
- see the Google Blog post announcing Similar Images.

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