Google recognizes faces
Google Image Search is now able to identify faces in pictures.
By Pandia Guest Writer Lars Iselid, Internetbrus
Google has made a silent launch of a new face search function in Google Image Search .
If you search for a person — let’s say Henrik Larsson — and then add the following text string to the end of the URL: &imgtype=face , Google will only include faces in image search results.
In this case Google will, unfortunately, not only give us pictures of the Swedish soccer player Henrik Larsson.
It would be great if Google could take this function one step further and sort pictures of people with similar names into different clusters. In this way a search for James Dean would sort the results for the actor James Dean and the singer James Dean Bradfield into different lists of search results.
You may exchange the term face in the search string URL with news in order to generate news related pictures only.
These new functions are probably the result of Google buying Neven Vision in the fall of 2006.
This article was originally published in Internetbrus, a Swedish blog on search engines and Internet searching that has been online since early 2001. It is written for both searchers and educators. Internetbrus is owned and edited by Lars Våge and Lars Iselid. Lars Våge works as a librarian at Mitthögskolan and a programmer for JL Informationsteknik. Lars Iselid is a librarian at the Umeå University Library, freelance journalist for the computer magazine Datormagazin. Lars and Lars are co-authors of a book on Internet research: Informationssökning på Internet.
Subscribe in a reader Click here to subscribe to Pandia Search Engine News by email!
Filed under: All (summaries) and Online search tools and services
Recent news from Pandia
Upcoming search engine marketing conferences
Pandia Search Engine News Wrap-up June 28
The status and challenges of multi media search engine technology
KPMRS helps you track your search engine rankings
Pandia Search Engine News Wrap-up June 21
Ask.com and Ask Jeeves launch database of 300 million answers and questions
Social networking for Internet marketers
Protesting Iranians use search engine Yauba to ensure privacy
Better search for life science, health science and chemistry at Science Direct
Separate shopping sites from info sites in your search results
Pandia Search Engine News Wrap-up June 14
Using Google and Yahoo! for finding free images
Google Squared can save you time on complex searches
Microsoft’s Bing search engine is here
Google Wave, the next wave of communication and collaboration
5 problems Wolfram Alpha can solve for you