Microsoft adds similar images feature to Live Search Images

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Microsoft, Search, Web

Microsoft adds similar images feature to Live Search Images

by Brad Linder Dec 2nd 2008

When you're using a search engine to find what you're looking for, you're probably used to typing a query, looking at the results, and refining your query. Every now and again you might even click a button that says it will show you similar results. Now Microsoft has added a button with exactly that feature to the company's image search engine.

When you conduct a search using Live Search Images, you can hover your mouse over any image and click the "show similar images" button. To be honest, it's a bit tricky to tell exactly what this does. Because if you've searched for something like "stick" you're probably already looking at a window filled with pictures of sticks. If you click the similar images button, you'll wind up on another page with images filled with sticks. That said, when I said I wanted to see similar images to a stick bug, I did get another picture of an insect - and several pictures of deodorant, glue sticks, and stick figures.

If you're looking for a more advanced image comparison service, check out TinEye, a beta site that allows you to upload a picture and find images on the internet that are compositionally similar.

[via Google Operating System]

Tags: image-search, live-search, live-search-images, search, tineye

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

laifhakur said 8:34PM on 12-02-2008

http://ForiSearch.com also helps you expand your images and video searches in new directions. It does so by helping you do foreign image searches using MSN, Google, and Yahoo.

I hope no one is annoyed that I just posted a very similar comment on another story. The other story was about language translation website that is using Google's API. It is just a huge coincidence that a story about Google's language translation API and a story about image searching were posted so close together! Because the combination of the two is *exactly* what ForiSearch does.

Quikboy said 6:48PM on 12-03-2008

I can't be the only one that likes Live Search Images. The clean layout works great, and just hover if you need more info. I did notice a change, but didn't recognize that it was this. Pretty cool.

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

View more Time Wasters