Microsoft Seeks Patent For "Search By Sketch" 104
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by
samzenpus
from the composite-search dept.
from the composite-search dept.
theodp writes "So, how does one search for images that aren't tagged with keywords? Google does offer its sometimes-spotty search by image, but what if you don't have an image handy that looks like what you're searching for? Microsoft, reports GeekWire, offers a solution that's 'a little like playing Pictionary with a search engine — drawing a sketch and seeing if the algorithm can return pictures that match it.' That's the concept behind Microsoft Research's patent-pending 'MindFinder' project, which has already been incorporated into a Windows Phone app called Sketch Match. A patent application made public Thursday notes that touch computing makes sketching easier than ever, making one wonder if we'll be 'giving Bing the finger' with Windows 8!"
Already Done (Score:5, Informative)
Already done here for LaTex symbols: http://detexify.kirelabs.org/classify.html
Please please please don't approve the patent. I haven't read it, but according to the summary there's nothing new about it.
Re:Interesting concept, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Rtriever (Score:5, Informative)
Prior art by IBM? (Score:4, Informative)
I remember IBM DB2 ads from the 90s about, well, sketch-based DB searches. IBM called it "Query by Image Content", or QBIC. It was easy to find one using Google Books -- in this case, CIO Magazine, Sept. 1, 1995: http://books.google.com/books?id=AAcAAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA25&ots=GGDbllo74W&dq=ibm%20db2%20ad%20bottle%20%22perfect%22&pg=PA24#v=onepage&q&f=false [google.com]
Patent will be invalid - It's been done before (Score:5, Informative)
Patent is invalid if there is prior art. Well, imgSeek has had that function since at least 2008 (can't find changelog for desktop version - it might have been there already in 2006).
Probably not as simple as it seems (Score:4, Informative)