ViPR Mobile Visual Search Engine for iPhone

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

Evolution Robotics (http://www.evolution.com/) posted a Youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COqGIM5dkXw) demonstrating their ViPR (http://www.evolution.com/core/ViPR/) visual pattern recognition software via the iPhone.

The demo video shows how you can take a photo of a Book, DVD, or CD cover with the iPhone's photo application. That photo can then be emailed to the ViPR server which will perform pattern recognition and then email you back information about the product. In the video, they take a photo of the DVD cover for Finding Nemo and got returned a description, Youtube link, and iTunes Music store link.

According to the video, they plan on releasing a native iPhone application come June.

Article Link (http://www.macrumors.com/iphone/2008/04/18/vipr-mobile-visual-search-engine-for-iphone/)

[SkippyThorson]

That's awesome. I'd definitely get my hands on that. :)

[batchtaster]

This doesn't really have anything to do with iPhone though. Any camera-phone with email capabilities should be able to do this.

[caliguy]

This doesn't really have anything to do with iPhone though. Any camera-phone with email capabilities should be able to do this.

Well in the final native iPhone version, I think it'll be able to find what the object is without having to email you the results, and it'll just pop up in the app.

I think it's a cool idea, but honestly I probably would never use it except maybe for showing it to someone to hear them go 'wow'.

[arn]

depending on how flexible the pattern recognition is would be nice if you could just take a picture of an object. I'm guessing that's much harder, since you have a much larger pool of objects.

But, still, would be nice to take a photo of something and look it up on amazon.

Could also be used as a Delicious Library type application. Just take a photo of your CD's or DVD's and have them automatically listed.

arn

[jbrent89]

its kinda cool but i wonder how many people are going to go through all those hoops when it seems like a google search would be faster and more efficient.. not really seeing any real-world applications if it can only recognize mainstream media... cool idea though and if they were able to get alot of objects i would def use (think your travelling and see some crazy statue.. take picture and learn what its about)

[batchtaster]

Well in the final native iPhone version, I think it'll be able to find what the object is without having to email you the results, and it'll just pop up in the app.

So why not do it in Java and provide it to all J2ME-capable phones? It sounds more like an AppleScript or Automator task than an actual app - the native part won't be doing anything more than is already done the manual, non-platform specific way. It might be using a WebKit POST rather than email, but it won't be detecting stuff itself; it will just be sending/receiving data. It could be done today via Safari really. Select image... Submit... "Here's your item".

The technology seems pretty clever and cool, but announcing it for iPhone seems more like flag-waving bandwagon-hopping when you realize how little it depends on the phone. Even with just Safari (or Opera, or whatever browser your phone is burdened with), bookmark the results it finds and you're building yourself a library. Unless, as arn says, they develop it further, like Delicious Library.

So, right now, not really seeing the iPhoneness of it all.

[bj3949]

Great technology and creativity.
Very unpractical.

It's much easier to Google.

[Delicious-Apple]

I had a similar idea when the My Dream app Contest was running and I called it 'Scanalysis'. I think it's truly a great idea but only if they implement it as a software app that can recognize a growing database of objects.
The email solution appears to be for demo/testing purposes.

Imagine going traveling and taking a picture of a building (inside their custom app) and the app giving you a wealth of information instantly.
If it's a museum it could give you the history, ticket prices, videos, photos, contact details, opening times, map/floorplans etc

You would have to write some nifty algorithms that collect data from a range of sources in order to grow the database of objects it can recognize. (Amazon, Google, Wikipedia etc)
You could then throw open your database to a self-editing community too in the style of a Wiki and then the idea would grow way beyond what is on show here.


This is the kind of application of the iPhone technology that people should be looking for in my opinion... same with the Starbucks QuickOrder concept. These are the ideas that could usher in the new era of personal/mobile computing. :)

My Original 'My Dream App' Idea:
http://mydreamapp.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=551&p=1

[DaveGee]

Well in the final native iPhone version, I think it'll be able to find what the object is without having to email you the results, and it'll just pop up in the app.

This app (and I have a hard time calling it that) clearly has to go back to a server to do the image recognition and item searching... After all the iPhone no matter what the storage size couldn't possibly hold **EVERYTHING** that this app is purportedly capable of identifying. Even if you kept it to just DVD items or books the iPhone would be busting at the seams if it tried to hold all of that info.

The reason I'm not even sure of this is an App is due to the workflow that was described in the video...

1 - Use Apple Camera software to take pic
2 - Use Apple E-Mail to send pic to their server
3 - Receive email (again using Apples E-Mail) to view a rich text or HTML with the match information.

Where does a 3rd party 'iPhone App' come into play in this process?! I mean it's a cool service (I guess) but from the looks of it isn't really an iPhone app (unless I'm missing something).

Dave

[Delicious-Apple]

This app (and I have a hard time calling it that) clearly has to go back to a server to do the image recognition and item searching... After all the iPhone no matter what the storage size couldn't possibly hold **EVERYTHING** that this app is purportedly capable of identifying. Even if you kept it to just DVD items or books the iPhone would be busting at the seams if it tried to hold all of that info.

The reason I'm not even sure of this is an App is due to the workflow that was described in the video...

1 - Use Apple Camera software to take pic
2 - Use Apple E-Mail to send pic to their server
3 - Receive email (again using Apples E-Mail) to view a rich text or HTML with the match information.

Where does a 3rd party 'iPhone App' come into play in this process?! I mean it's a cool service (I guess) but from the looks of it isn't really an iPhone app (unless I'm missing something).

Dave

I think it's just a case of us getting carried away and thinking how great the idea 'could' be if you stripped away the camera/email elements and packaged it all in one web connected app, developed using the iPhone SDK. ;)

[Small White Car]

This doesn't really have anything to do with iPhone though. Any camera-phone with email capabilities should be able to do this.

Any camera-phone can open up the Wifi iTunes store and bring up the item you were looking at?

Don't think so.

I agree that google searching is faster, but until a google search can do that on the iPhone, this little process has that one advantage.

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

This is a really neat idea. Definitely eye candy and you won't have to type anything into a traditional search engine so it should make people that don't like the iPhone keyboard happy.

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

Well in the final native iPhone version, I think it'll be able to find what the object is without having to email you the results, and it'll just pop up in the app.

This app (and I have a hard time calling it that) clearly has to go back to a server to do the image recognition and item searching... After all the iPhone no matter what the storage size couldn't possibly hold **EVERYTHING** that this app is purportedly capable of identifying. Even if you kept it to just DVD items or books the iPhone would be busting at the seams if it tried to hold all of that info.

The reason I'm not even sure of this is an App is due to the workflow that was described in the video...

1 - Use Apple Camera software to take pic
2 - Use Apple E-Mail to send pic to their server
3 - Receive email (again using Apples E-Mail) to view a rich text or HTML with the match information.

Where does a 3rd party 'iPhone App' come into play in this process?! I mean it's a cool service (I guess) but from the looks of it isn't really an iPhone app (unless I'm missing something).

Dave

To me it seemed like it was a test of the idea. It seemed to me that the app would incorporate all into one. You would launch the app, take your picture, click a search button, and then it would display the information. At least that was my take. This was simply a test of the server and the recoginition software.

[slidingjon]

This is pretty cool, but I don't see how it is more effective than picking up the box and looking at it. The iTunes integration is cool, but not helpful if you are out and about (no wifi).

[CoreWeb]

You have some typos! ;) First, you say "via the iPhone." This should, per Apple's preference, be "via iPhone." Next, you say "with the iPhone's photo application." Again, this should just be "with iPhone's photo application."

Drop the articles. :D

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

Evolution Robotics (http://www.evolution.com/) posted a Youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COqGIM5dkXw) demonstrating their ViPR (http://www.evolution.com/core/ViPR/) visual pattern recognition software via the iPhone.

The demo video shows how you can take a photo of a Book, DVD, or CD cover with the iPhone's photo application. That photo can then be emailed to the ViPR server which will perform pattern recognition and then email you back information about the product. In the video, they take a photo of the DVD cover for Finding Nemo and got returned a description, Youtube link, and iTunes Music store link.

According to the video, they plan on releasing a native iPhone application come June.

Article Link (http://www.macrumors.com/iphone/2008/04/18/vipr-mobile-visual-search-engine-for-iphone/)

[Mal]

That's frickin' sweet. I don't think putting on the iPhone was necessarily to say "Oh look at this cool thing we can do with the iPhone," as much as it was, "Oh, look how much more awesome this is when you can take it with you!" Regardless, iPhone users use their phones so much more for internet than most types that this is the perfect platform to launch something like this on.

jW

[bytethese]

This app (and I have a hard time calling it that) clearly has to go back to a server to do the image recognition and item searching... After all the iPhone no matter what the storage size couldn't possibly hold **EVERYTHING** that this app is purportedly capable of identifying. Even if you kept it to just DVD items or books the iPhone would be busting at the seams if it tried to hold all of that info.

The reason I'm not even sure of this is an App is due to the workflow that was described in the video...

1 - Use Apple Camera software to take pic
2 - Use Apple E-Mail to send pic to their server
3 - Receive email (again using Apples E-Mail) to view a rich text or HTML with the match information.

Where does a 3rd party 'iPhone App' come into play in this process?! I mean it's a cool service (I guess) but from the looks of it isn't really an iPhone app (unless I'm missing something).

Dave

Since the demo was more of a proof of concept, I'm guessing a native app would work similar to the following:

1. Launch ViPR App.
2. Take picture using the app and it returns your results in the app.
3. ???
4. DONE!!

Sounds easy to me. :)

[bytethese]

You have some typos! ;) First, you say "via the iPhone." This should, per Apple's preference, be "via iPhone." Next, you say "with the iPhone's photo application." Again, this should just be "with iPhone's photo application."

Drop the articles. :D

Wait, typo or incorrectly communicated via speech? :)

[samh004]

I think Microsoft, Yahoo and Google will be knocking on their doors very soon, if they don't already have some version of this in development at their labs already.

I think it's great they've decided to go with the iPhone first, how successful it'll actually be though is the real question. I suppose with time it'll learn, but how much time ?

[applefan69]

This seems great, maybe it wont be the best right away... but im thinking of the future. a few years when this technology is perfected, they could turn something like this into live video. Could you imagine, not even having to take a picture, all you'd have to do is simply point your camera at the object andbamn all the info you could need..

That would be the equivalent of haivng some sort of built in scanner that could identify everything... to me thats something we would all see in star trek and say "psht.. thats never gonna be possible"

yet in a few years if this technology gets further advanced.... then it could be something thats built into EVERY iPhone. By then that could mean 20 million people would have their hands on suhc sofisticated technology.

It scares me how quickly technology developers now a days. Just 10 years ago, a MB of was like the equivalent of what a GB is now. Some day the same will happen withm GB's and TB.

[macerroneous]

bar code recognition

[TwoSyllables]

Am I the only one who got such a kick out of him trying to hide the fact that he had a Britney Spears cd? He pushed it over in the corner and even covered it with the phone. So out of place with The Matrix and Lord of the Rings! Even nerds have guilty pleasures.... :p

[peterlobl]

In the wild, would be cool to identify what type of flower, tree or bird/animal one came across..
also face recog would be interesting... Gee that guy next to me looks like someone I saw up ok the post office wall...
Hmmmm

[123]

Yawn

http://www.kooaba.com/

[Island Dog]

Overall it's pretty interesting, I guess.

[Orelhas]

*cough cough* along with itunes connection a btorrent or ed2k link and i think it might be a killer app *cough cough*
Nice app, might be useless though, then again, maybe not. Depends on who's using it.

[Peel]

Anybody catch what that email address was, and the special code? :rolleyes:

[batchtaster]

Any camera-phone can open up the Wifi iTunes store and bring up the item you were looking at?

Don't think so.

Okay, clearly you either didn't watch it, you you weren't paying attention when you did. This has *nothing* to do with the Wifi iTunes Store. You:

1. Take a photo
2. Send it to a special email address for the ViPR service
3. Wait
4. Check your mail
5. Open up the new email from ViPR
6. Read the new ViPR email

See? No iTunes Store. It doesn't even go anywhere near Apple (and seriously, where on earth did you get the notion that it did?!?). They could conceivably add iTunes URLs into the information returned, just as you can email iTunes URLs to people today, just as they seem to have put in Amazon URLs.

And all those steps, you know, those 1-6 that I numbered above, see them there? All could be done on any phone. See? Steps 1-6, not involving Apple, not doing anything any camera-phone can already do? Yeah, think you might be getting it now, me being right and all that...

Where does a 3rd party 'iPhone App' come into play in this process?!

THANK YOU. Exactly what I was saying. I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't see an 'iPhone App' out of this service.

[ThunderSkunk]

Finally, no longer will we be bothered with looking these luxury items up ourselves. Now I can finally buy more crap even faster! It is truly an amazing leap forward in excess and laziness! All my dreams have come true! More more more! I gotta have more *INSERT MASS-MARKET CONSUMER PRODUCT HERE*.

Half the worlds population starves to death and dies of diseases, meanwhile we sit on our butts getting excited about minutely easier ways to buy crap we don't need. It's good to live among the filthy rich, innit?

How about, instead of ten million iphones converting people to read-only "players" of censored and corporate-approved content like good little zombies, we write some apps that let ten million people become read/write "creators" and actually make some kind of contribution.

[batchtaster]

How about, instead of ten million iphones converting people to read-only "players" of censored and corporate-approved content like good little zombies, we write some apps that let ten million people become read/write "creators" and actually make some kind of contribution.

Because we have that already. It's called YouTube. It's a nice, socially responsible, equalizing theory, for ten million people to have their own voice and be heard, away from the corporate fat-cats who want to enslave us all (and so on and so forth; feel free to add your own rhetoric here). Except that what we learned from YouTube is that ten million people are uninteresting, attention-seeking nobs.

[hierobryan]

How about, instead of ten million iphones converting people to read-only "players" of censored and corporate-approved content like good little zombies, we write some apps that let ten million people become read/write "creators" and actually make some kind of contribution.

It's more important for people to "connect", as in Myspace/Facebook, rather than be a "player" or "creator". People long to be connected to other people. You guys already know this I'm sure.

And ya, www.kooaba.com has already done this picture recognition thing.

[happydude]

In the wild, would be cool to identify what type of flower, tree or bird/animal one came across..
also face recog would be interesting... Gee that guy next to me looks like someone I saw up ok the post office wall...
Hmmmm

let's hope it never gets that sophisticated, a little too big brother for me . . .

[ThunderSkunk]

Because we have that already. It's called YouTube. It's a nice, socially responsible, equalizing theory, for ten million people to have their own voice and be heard, away from the corporate fat-cats who want to enslave us all (and so on and so forth; feel free to add your own rhetoric here). Except that what we learned from YouTube is that ten million people are uninteresting, attention-seeking nobs.


Oh. Yeah. Youtube.

Touche.

:(