So you have a picture of a bottle with foreign text on it. You can’t read it and you certainly can’t search for it conventionally since you can’t type the foreign characters. What you need at this point is a query-by-image search engine like CamFind that will use that image as the query to present you with matching hits.
CamFind will basically turn your camera into a portal to uncover the unknown. All you have to do is point and shoot and the app will take care of the rest.
CamFind is an alternative to Google Goggles, which basically promises to do the same thing. It does a one up on Google though, as it comes with a bit more features.
Searching isn’t all that CamFind can do. In fact, it can also translate foreign-language text in your images in real-time, grade foods at your local grocer, and scan documents when you’re out of the office. Point CamFind at a movie poster, and it’ll bring up showtimes and the movie’s trailer for you. Take a picture of chips or coats, and you’ll be directed to retailers who have those items in stock.
The best part? CamFind can be downloaded for free from the iTunes App Store.
VIA [ C|NET ]
After doing a few searches, it’s pretty obvious there are real people sitting behind a keyboard identifying these images (a la Amazon Mechanical Turk), not some fancy algorithm. There are some real privacy issues here, of course.
Hi Mnot,
CamFind utilizes a combination of computer vision and crowdsourcing in order to generate image identifications and then offers search results to the user that correspond to the image taken. The computer vision aspect is a patented technology designed by our company, Image Searcher, Inc.. If you have any more questions I’d be more than happy address them. Feel free to email me at Contact[at]CamFindApp[dot]com.
Best,
Dmitriy