XCavator - Image Search..

Image recognition has been one of the most talked about technologies and quite a few companies have tried to recognize the potential in this genre. I came across Xcavator, which is an image search engine for stock photos working on similar lines. I tried my hands on this and the results were quite interesting. They provide more than just a couple of options to search an image -
- Color Search; select the hue and also the hue intensity and you'll be presented with a lot of images matching the criteria.
- Image Upload; upload any image and similar images will be listed from its database.
- Tag Search; this is a no brainer, just click on the tag and all the potential candidates will be shown.
- Mix and match the above options.
Xcavator also allows to select a part of the upload image - for instance, if an image of a car is uploaded to search for similar images; then the one can select say the wheel of the uploaded image, and the search will follow suit. XCavator is in the beta version and powered by Cognisign. However, I did try the face recognition part as well, but I guess they are still to get that in place.
For naive folks like me, stock photos mean that license needs to be bought on either once-buy-forever-use basis or on a normal royalty basis.
Update: Just saw that Techcrunch has posted their review on the same. Read the same here..

Africa.. Virtual Goods.. and Terry Semel..

New software tools keep getting released, the startups keep getting funded, though I must admit the CEOs don't get fired e'day! ;) Well, Terry Semel finally amidst increasing hoopla laid down his CEO badge at Yahoo, and allowing co-founder Jerry Yang to take his position. Anyways, I just came across a couple of interesting reads, courtesy Techcrunch and NY Times.
- Techcrunch or rather Susan Wu writes a guest article for them, citing a new market thats coming up, and coming up at some acceleration - the market for Virtual Goods! Damn, I never realized that "People spend over $1.5 billion on virtual items every year!".. Read on the complete article here..
- Jason Pontin on the other hand writes on a radically different subject for NY Times. Africa - A subject that people talk about only on the email forwards or on social awareness channels. But this time, he poses a different question, "What Does Africa Need Most: Technology or Aid?" Well, he does not conclude on a definite note in this one, but then I guess he's shed enough light. Read on the same here..

Buzzzzzzzzzz..

Been keeping really busy the past few days, and Austin is now really knocking on the doors now and I've been busy trying to research the best air fares available and the routes et al. So I'll be back pretty soon once I get these things done. Seeing the way even the international airlines work, I just hope that the folks there become more competent - its indeed pretty sad the way incompetency has crept in virtually every sector. Anyways, adios till then!

Apple Safari 3 Beta..

Apple has released its web browser, Safari 3 as a beta download for Windows. Jazzy as Apple is, I was really interested to to get the look and feel of this browser and I must say that it is a mixed bag of goodies and some lousy stuff as well. This 28.2 Mb download is available here. I haven't really checked out on statistics myself, but Apple folks say this about Safari -

The iPod users will relate the look and feel to the iTunes software. It gives a simple grey panel look without over cluttering it with too many things in the toolbar. The notable features -
- Tabbed Browsing; though I couldn't find a shortcut to switch between the tabs while browsing
- Snapback: which lets you instantly snap back to your original search results or to the top level of any website, even after you’ve browsed down a few levels.
- Autofill forms
- Google Search at almost every possible text; I didn't know that Apple folks have developed this kind of affinity for the former!

- Neat Interface: Yeah, with the decreased width of the browser panel, it indeed gives more screen space for the web page to the user.

- Incredible Inline Search: I say its incredible, try out for yourself. A subtle change from what other browsers provide, but then it really is helpful.
But then there are certain other issues, which eclipses its features pretty badly-
- Font, font..font; just can't believe that Apple has screwed up with this. Not adopting the ClearType used by Windows, the jagged edges are so visible when web pages are viewed with this browser, that it really hits it pretty hard. Nopes, they have to completel revamp this ASAP. Jeff Atwood has also mentioned this in his post here.
- Memory Usage; whoa.. unbelievable again - while minimized Safari behaves fine. Maximize it and you'll come to know. Check out this snap I managed to capture from my task manager, its unacceptable..

I'll still go with Opera, probably coz I still love the font they use and probably coz when I hit the back button, I don't want the latency associated with fetching the page again from the server. Cache it folks! Apple could have really done better with Safari, its smooth, no doubt, but with the font factor it really doesn't suit my eyes too well.

The Powerset Hype..

I have always maintained that since Google has entered the web scenario, more than anything else, it has ignited the innovation fire among the geeks around the world. And at times even when the innovation factor isn't so pertinent, the hype factor that is generated with every new product release is pretty exciting.
A couple of months back, I had came across Powerset, but didn't write about it since it was due to be launched in September this year. The punch line for them is that they will be a Natural Language Processing (NLP) Search engine, which will revolutionize the way users search on the web.
In essence, the results produced by a query here will not just list the pages containing the keywords, but will take into account the linguistic meaning of your query and return results appropriately. Powerset is not open yet, but going through their blog, I found this. A similar query on Google yields -

Sometimes, I wonder whats the point of showing 1,620,000 results for the same?
NLP is a tricky domain, the linguistics as we all know can get really complicated. Meanwhile, Powerset has released a video, giving a small glimpse of their world, and inviting folklore to feel like product managers by testing their product and posting suggestions.. Hmm.. but whats the compensation? ;)