Google Image Search has finally implemented some of the technology that Google acquired with its purchase of Neven Vision last August.
Now searchers on Google can block the images of certain people or locations in Google Image search using Google’s image recognition technology.
Case in point, try a search on Google Images for “Paris”. There is a diverse mix of travel pics, America’s favorite billionaire sweetheart/party girl/criminal, and random people with the name “Paris”.
But say that the searcher is looking for photos of Paris Hilton, by restricting Google Image search to Faces only by adding &imgtype=face to the end of the URL, the searcher is served only results with faces. And chances are in such a case, there will be plenty of hot Paris Hilton headshots (and no body shots) [Thanks Google Operating System Blog!].
In an ideal world, Google Image Search would use a technology similar to Riya, which would serve Image results relevant or similar to specific faces, locations or products… so if we wanted Paris Hilton results only, one click would serve only those for Ms. Hilton (of course the user could simply search for “Paris Hilton” instead of Paris, but you get the idea).
Similar searches which could use such biometric differentiation would be lions (animals / Detroit Lions) and Washington (state vs. DC vs. George).
By the way, the search for Washington is a great example of news images vs. face images in Google Search.
