Skip to Content

Free TUAW iPhone app -- try it now!
AOL Tech

google-news-timeline posts

Filed under: Google, Search, Web

Google launches experimental Similar images, News timeline features

Similar Images
Google has relaunched Google Labs, a site where you can find some of the latest experimental features for the company's search engine and other tools. The new Google Labs is hosted on Google App Engine, and today Google rolled out the first two new labs features we've seen in the past few months: Similar Images and Google News Timeline.

The News Timeline feature presents Google News results chronologically in a timeline view. You can zoom in and out, or navigate through the timeline by dragging or adjusting the time scale to days, weeks, months, years, or decades.

The Similar Images feature feels like something that could (and perhaps should) be added to the main Google Images site in the future. When you search for any picture using Similar Images, you'll see a link below each search result. When you click it you'll see more images that are "similar."

It's not entirely clear what information Google is using to determine what images are similar. But for the most part it works. For example, if you search for a particular actor from a TV show, like Battlestar Galactica and click on the similar images link, you'll find more pictures of that actor and of other actors from the show. If you search for something more general like "netbook" and click on a picture, you'll probably find more netbooks that are positioned similarly in the image frame. And if you search for something like "duck" and click on a picture of a yellow rubber ducky instead of an actual animal, your screen will be filled with yellow ducks.

It would be nice if you could select the criteria you want to use to compare images though. For instance, what if you weren't looking for netbooks that are photographed from the same angle, but rather laptops from the same company?

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Livescribe Store
Microsoft Security Essentials
Chromium Pre-Alpha on CrunchBang Linux
Safari 4 Beta
10 Firefox themes that don't suck
IE8 RC1
Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party
Download Squad at the Crunchies
WordPress 2.7
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Windows 7 Hands On
Comodo Internet Security
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

More Tech Coverage

AOL Radio