Google Acquires Database Like.com; What About Other "Similar Image" and Image Recognition Search Services You Can Use (They're All Free)
The rumor that Google was going to acquire Like.com is accurate and now official. Tom Krazit has the story on CNET.
The Like.com remains online (at least for now and includes a note from the founder) and continues to allow users to use its technology to find similar items (clothing, shoes, jewelry, items for the home, etc.) by creating sets of results based on various details of a of a watch,the color of a pair of shoes,the shape of a handbag, or the pattern of a shirt. Results can be refined by a number of criteria including thinks like price, brand, materials, or the online store.
Like.com developed using Riya.com (and before that Ojos) technology which offered face and image recognition search (used to tag photos) along with the ability to search text "inside of an image." It was around from about 2005 until 2009.
What's important to know and remember is that Riya/Like.com was not and is not the only player in this space. There were and are still several others. Here are three (not including Face.com whose tech is in use on Facebook.)
Has been around for at least 10 years providing visual search and image recognition. Commercial (ex. tracking ads, stock photo houses, intellectual property tracking, etc.) and government users. Here's an interesting use of their technology from last month that powered a scavenger hunt of several candy shops. The technologies section of their web site is very useful.
With TinEye you can learn where an image came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or if there is a higher resolution version. Note: You are searching against their database of more than 1.6 million images. In this example, you'll see more than 2800 uses of the Abbey Road album cover by The Beatles on the Internet. So, not only is thus database helpful in finding the same image at different resolutions but also modified versions and versions that shouldn't be online for one of many reasons. It's a tool IP researchers love or will love soon.
TinEye is a favorite around here. It's useful, fun, and somewhat addictive.
Update: You can use Evernote to search the text inside of any image you upload to the service. Now, restaurant menus of your favorite places can be saved, searched, and shared.
A family of resources to help information workers be more effective, raise the value of information in their organisations and contribute to success. Read more »
Recently I have found myself cooing over visualisation maps (and heat maps) of health and well being resources. The content rich data is overlayed with mapping technologies, and some interesting themes and patterns are emerging.
A lot of the talk around social media in the last year has been around information overload. Social media has provided us with new and exciting ways to create content. But it has also meant learning new ways to manage and engage with social media tools. Are we teetering on the edge of an information overload precipice?
Information overload is a figment of your imagination. Or a failure of your filter. Or a symptom of your technological submissiveness. Depends on who you ask.
What if you had to sort through 3.5 million articles and social media posts a day and try to pull out the most relevant items for your organisation? What if you then had to cobble it all together into something readable for your top groups and executives in your organisation?
Alacra Compliance saves time by aggregating information from both free and fee-based sources and enabling users to conduct an accurate federated search across these sources (coined “simultaneous search” by Alacra).
FreePint Family
Quilting big data threads
The fallacy of information overload
Information overload: fact, fantasy or filter failure? 
