Prime View The 10 Most Emerging Startups of 2018 | Page 33

Visual search has come along significant changes on its path of what we see and experience today. A lot of
companies have been developing their own visual search engines over the years and hence contributing to
the technology as a whole. Let’s experience chronologically the big steps taken by various companies
which lead to the current evolution of Visual Search:
In 2008, TinEye claimed to be the first company to launch reverse image search engine which used image
identification technology rather than keywords, watermarks or metadata.
In 2010, Google introduced Google Goggles as a tool for the first time to search particular information of
an image with the help of a camera, initially designed for Android smartphones. Unfortunately it did not
get very popular among the users due to some technical disabilities and Google eventually decided to shut
it down.
Amazon.com announced fresh visual search capability in its men’s and women’s shoe stores which
customers to search and browse for shoes based on how they look.
In 2011, Google introduced Reverse Image Search for the web-based image search. Upload a photograph
from desktop to Google Images and it will show related images used on other websites and also different
sizes of the same photo almost instantly.
Amazon launched their first augmented reality app, Flow, which provided both object and barcode
recognition.
In 2013, Image searcher Inc. launched Camfind, a visual search and image recognition mobile app. It
allows users to identify any item by taking a picture with their smartphone.
In 2014, Pinterest allowed its users to highlight specific sections of pins to find visually similar pins to the
selected section.
In 2015, India’s largest online retailer Flipkart added visual search feature to its mobile app. Within a few
months of launch the company removed the functionality from the App due to low customer search
numbers.
In 2016, Microsoft Bing, introduced highlight-specific-sections functionality to its mobile image search.
eBay acquired “Corrigon”, an Israel-based startup, specialist in computer vision and visual search
technology to build out its search and discovery technology for customers. India based Turing Analytics,
launches its Visual search solution for fashion, furniture and lifestyle retailers.
In 2017, Pinterest launches Pinterest Lens, a visual search feature on its platform. H&M’s Image Search
first launched in May in UK, Netherlands, Denmark and Finland. Google announced its image recognition
mobile app “Lens” at the I/O conference in May, 2017. Tommy Hilfiger launched Visual search on their
app in a fashion show where audience could buy products by clicking on model’s photo on the ramp and
uploading on app.
In 2018, Snapchat added visual product search powered by amazon, to let its users identify products just
by capturing them with their phone camera.
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