Amazon Joins Visual Search Parade
July 30, 2018
Text search is long past done as a frontier. Verbal search is already being nailed down by more startups and tech giants than you can tell Alexa to shake a stick at. So, the new frontier? It’s visual search and, you guessed it, one of the biggest names in the industry is already working their way in, as we discovered in a recent Fortune story, “Snapchat and Amazon are Working On Visual Search Feature.”
According to the story:
“Snap appears to be laying the groundwork for a partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon. “According to TechCrunch, a version of Snapchat being developed for Android phones includes code for a new feature called “Visual Search” that can use Snapchat’s camera to send images of a product or a barcode scan to Amazon, which then display search results.”
Amazon is not alone, however. Microsoft is also developing a visual search tool that can simply look at items and begin shopping for them. The controversy about the accuracy of Amazon’s Rekognition system may inhibit some of Amazon’s plans for image centric features and functions. I I search for a product with my mobile phone and Amazon returns matches which are incorrect, what happens to consumer confidence?
Error rates are likely to matter, probably more when looking for a shirt than when trying to figure out which elected official is a bad actor. Shirts are different. Bad actors not so much, some may suggest.
Patrick Roland, July 30, 2018
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