I believe that visual search empowers the mobile consumer by quickly allowing them to start a product and information search by simply using the camera on their smart phones
Berkeley, CA (PRWEB) February 16, 2011 —
IQ Engines, Inc. today announced continued customer traction in the retail and comparison shopping segments. Best Buy has released its flagship application (Best Buy App) on the iPhone and Android platforms where customers are able to initiate a product search simply by taking a photo of the product they are interested in. This makes it far easier for the consumer to compare features and prices against other brands and stores. NexTag has released its mobile comparison shopping application on the iPhone. Its application allows customers to snap an image of a product and quickly compare prices and features across thousands of stores. ESRB, the video game rating board, released its flagship application with visual search in early December. This app allows customers to take a photo of a particular game and quickly learn and share its rating.
"I believe that visual search empowers the mobile consumer by quickly allowing them to start a product and information search by simply using the camera on their smart phones” said Gary Koelling, director of emerging channels for Best Buy. “We selected IQ Engines because of its speed, accuracy and ability to label any image.”
The IQ Engines any-image recognition technology was designed to be flexible and highly scalable. Customers develop applications to submit photos to the API, and in seconds an accurate description is returned, which can be used to search any data source for relevant results. IQ Engines has also used its own API to develop oMoby, a visual search application for the iPhone, as a showcase for its technology. oMoby has recently been updated and is available for free on Apple's iTunes App Store.
“Nextag is the leader in finding great deals and exceptional values for our customers whether they are in front of their computer or at the store. For our mobile application, visual search has got to be a part of it. IQ Engine’s visual search adds visual identification for products, which Nextag uses within its powerful mobile apps in order to offer customers choices above and beyond most other shopping tools." Said Nick Iozzo VP Product Marketing at Nextag. “With visual search our customers can just tap, snap and save.”
“ESRB’s mission is to provide consumers, especially parents, with information about video game content and age-appropriateness so they can choose games that they consider suitable for their families. Our ratings appear on all game packages but we also offer ‘rating summaries’ online that are an excellent source of more detailed information,” said Randy Walker, VP of Marketing for the ESRB. “To put this information directly into parents’ hands, we developed an easy-to-use visual search application, powered by IQ Engines, that allows parents to quickly access these rating summaries where they frequently need them most, right at the store.”
Retailers, handset manufacturers, wireless carriers, and software developers interested in adding visual intelligence to their mobile applications can learn more about the IQ Engines any-image recognition API and sign up for access at http://developer.iqengines.com.
Supporting Links
Home Page: http://www.iqengines.com
oMoby: http://omoby.com
Download for iPhone: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/omoby/id353867169
Twitter: @IQEngines
Blog: http://www.iqengines.com/blog/
About IQ Engines
IQ Engines is a Vision-as-a-Service company, using its image recognition platform to power visual search applications. IQ Engines identifies and labels photos, making images useful by recognizing their key content and using it to power searches for relevant information, retailers and advertisers. Our image recognition platform is fast, accurate and scalable. We provide image intelligence to businesses that include retailers, photo publishers and mobile app developers. Founded as a collaborative effort between computational neuroscientists at UC Berkeley and UC Davis, the IQ Engines team possesses unparalleled expertise in image recognition. The company's goal is to bring visual intelligence to every camera in the world. IQ Engines is based in Berkeley, California.
For more information, contact:
Andrew Stadlen
IQ Engines
andrew(at)iqengines(dot)com
510-592-4731
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