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Well, we reviewed TinEye a couple of days ago and they were kind enough to give us an early invite into the beta, and we must say that we’re very proud to be a part of this one. We’re very impressed and we can certainly say that there’s a lot more to TinEye then what meets the eye. On to the review then!
Straight away, after the simple sign up process was done, we were really impressed with the homepage. The interface is very straight forward and simple. We would say it’s like Google, but we wont, as TinEye’s UI does justice to its own main feature. And here at Startup Meme, we just have a thing for websites that know how to use the white backgrounds well enough!
There are 2 options for the upload interface available, Flash and Non Flash. Unless, you’re still using a device which doesn’t support Flash ( iPhone anyone? ), you’d want to stick to the Flash version. The image can be either uploaded or you can just paste the URL of any image in JPG, GIF or PNG formats.
We first tried out the image search with our own images. I went first and this is what I got…
Ah well, I guess I’m not that popular yet, a tough one for my ego right there. So we went with something a little more popular then me. ( ok, maybe a lot more!)
Well, we got a lot of results. But the results are shown in a list, which isn’t really the most preferrable way to view them. We’d advice them to use the method with which they display search results in their Cool Searches as it’ll be easier to visualize without the scrolling. Or maybe something like coverflow or Windows XP’s Explorer Filmstrip view. Although you can compare images through the link given below the searched images to the query image which is very useful. This is the display of search results at the moment.
TinEye uses complex and intelligent algorithms to bring you results that will really blow away your mind. No more are you dependant on Google or Yahoo to find images similar to the ones you desire.
Last time, we complained ( just a teeny bit !) about how we would want to have some sort of text searching to TinEye to go through the huge index that they
have. But our complain was answered once we logged in after getting our first search result. There is a plugin for IE and Firefox, which adds an option to search for an image with TinEye in the right click menu. This really is a nifty idea and saves a lot of hassle to go to the site, upload an image ( or copy/paste the URL ) for search. It just searches for the image right on TinEye and shows you the results.
Despite the 586 million images that they’ve indexed so far, TinEye’s search is very fast. They surely have optimized their search algorithms well enough to achieve this speed along with the accuracy in their search results. Also, you can submit your website, if you think its images haven’t been indexed and don’t show up in the search results.
Others have tried and failed but TinEye has the potential of being the next big thing in image search ( we think it already is! ). And we’ll try our best to catch up with TinEye for an interview shortly.
We can safely predict that as the TinEye’s index of images keeps growing, we’ll be gauging each other’s popularity on the internet by the amount of search results we get on TinEye. An alarming prediction for me alone!
P.S. We’re giving away 40 invites thanks to the TinEye team. If you’re interested in being a part of TinEye, just answer this simple question in the comments box. The best comments will get the invites.
‘Why should you be given an invite and how can you benefit from TinEye?’
I’ve wanted this for years!!
I work as an designer/artworker for a company that sells personalized promotional products (we put logos on stuff).
I won’t go in to the boring details of the job but basically I need clients to give me good quality artwork suitable to prepare for printing, on all manner of products.
You wouldn’t believe the amount of clients that come to us with a 72dpi scan of a letter head with a logo on it saying “this is the only copy of the artwork we have, and we can’t/don’t know how to get it any better. Can you not just use that?”
anyway, I often have to go searching for better artwork on the web to use.
a service like this is just what I need to save me a lot of time.
Thats why I should be given an invite, and how I can benefit from TinEye
…because it’s awsome and I’d like to blog about it!
I study and practice various forms of dataveillance as a social cyborg. Would love to possibly use this in conjunction with my wearable video setup.
I read about similar technology in the hands of Google and MS and pondered a post about
I read about similar technology in the hands of Google and MS and pondered a post about the impact it could have on brand marketing if suddenly all instances of your brand name in real space (billboard ads; signage; newspaper scans) could be searched like hypertext.
I’d benefit by getting the opportunity to do a really gangster follow-up post.
This level of image recognition is of great interest to the Intelligence Community. I cover IT issues for that community and would love to feature a story about Tin Eye and my experiences in using it.
Because I actually have a tin eye. Replaced one of my eyes with a tin replica thinking that some day it would come in handy. Well looks like this is the day! (knock tin (eye)).
I have to say it has never given me much trouble, but it also doesn’t do image recognition cuz it is made of tin. But it is quite the conversation piece. Comes in handy in handy to whenever I need a ping-pong size tin ball. Just pop it out and it’s ready to go!
I would love to have an invite. I am a software engineer and also maintain the intranet application of my office. So it will be highly helpful if i can get an invite
I’m working toward a career in interaction design. I’ll use Tineye to keep an eye out for new designs and share same with my colleagues.
I work in the adult entertainment industry and would love to see if TinEye can help me identify sites using our images and logos without permission, as well as discover legitimate affiliates using our materials in cool new ways.
Thanks if I get one!
I am interested in finding instances of use of my company’s logo on the Net as well as plain curious about this fascinating search engine. This is a whole new way of thinking about search. Thanks!
I cannot compete with an actual tin eye (though I have titanium-framed glasses, can we count those?), and I sure can’t compete with intelligence-community usage (though I also cover security and IT in my day job), but I have tested a whole lot of beta in my day and have an uncanny ability to find the pre-launch glitches in things. Which, hey, better pre- than post-launch. It’s tough love, baby, tough love…
(Also, and more seriously, I’m wondering how brilliant this could be for the prosopagnosia community. Prosopagnosia, aka “face blindness,” is a neurological condition in which it’s very, very difficult to recognize faces. I’m curious to see if the search engine has already advanced past my capabilities!)
Got the invite and am currently filling out the profile stuff. Thanks very much!!!!
Got my invite, thanks!
Todd and Jarin, you both are welcome. Hope you enjoy using TinEye as much as we do. Keep reading Startup Meme!
Can you send-me an invite to join the Tineye?
Thanks,
Sure David, mail me your email address at imran.hussain@startupmeme.com