Have you ever been in situations where you have been hard put to describe an item you want in words, and you wished for a
photo or sample to explain your taste and need better? Path breaking new visual computing
technology has nowprovidesthe dim contours of a solution.A new website, Like.com, offers a new search engine where the contents of photos, rather than text, are used to search and retrieve similar items. Currently, Like.com looks at more than two million different items in four categories: shoes, handbags, watches, and jewelry. Soon it plans to add clothing and other aesthetic products to the visual search engine.A photo is used as the start point of the visual search. Patented ‘Likeness Technology’ is used to create a digital signature that describes the photo's contents and to enable a more accurate search for similar looking items and products. The ‘Detail’
feature lets you find items that have a specific feature you like (such as a buckle, straps, bezel, etc); the ‘Color’ feature lets you find color variants of the item you desire; and the ‘Celebrity’ feature helps you find clothing, shoes and accessories similar to those worn by your favorite celebrities. The site will soon have an ‘Upload’ feature that allows you to upload your own photo of your favorite item and search for the same or similar item on the web. With its launch, Like.com has just scratched the surface of a technology that has enormous possibilities.Like.com is the brainwork of Riya, a company that was founded in August 2004 and which focuses on visual computing research.