This is an interesting way to shop. Riya has just launched Like.com, an image search system that lets you tag images and then find other things online that look like those images. For example, you apparently can grab a still of Paris Hilton in action, select her video camera, and then find similar night vision cameras on the market. Here’s what our drunken uncles at TechCrunch have to say:
The Like.com engine takes both text and images as queries, something no one else does. To return results based on an image query, Like.com compares a “visual signature” for the query image to possible results. The visual signature is simply a mathematical representatioin of the image using 10,000 variables. If enough variables are identical, Like.com decides the images are similar.
The whole thing is still very nebulous looking closely at the stuff they’re offering, including the watches, I can assure you that Puffy is not wearing a Breitling. Cool idea, though.