TinEye, Image search Engine (website)



You can upload any image file to TinEye or paste in the URL of an image in the search box. It then will scour the Web and find sites that contain the same image (see video). As long as the image has been indexed by TinEye, it can be found.

DimP (website)

DimP is a video player that allows to browse video clips by directly manipulating their content. Abstract : "We present a method for browsing videos by directly drag-ging their content. This method brings the benefits of direct manipulation to an activity typically mediated by widgets. We support this new type of interactivity by: 1) automati-cally extracting motion data from videos; and 2) a new technique called relative flow dragging that lets users con-trol video playback by moving objects of interest along their visual trajectory. We show that this method can out-perform the traditional seeker bar in video browsing tasks that focus on visual content rather than time." (publication)

PopTok (website)

Israeli startup PopTok has done a brave thing. It’s created a plugin that combines emoticons and movie quotes (which, used in excess, are two of the most annoying things known to man). The plugin is currently Windows only, offering support for AIM and MSN Live Messenger with more protocols on the way. The JVP Studio-funded startup wants to replace emoticons as we know them with short snippets of Hollywood movies, television, and music videos. After downloading the PopTok client, users can choose from hundreds of clips which have been culled from such quotable classics as “The 40 Year-Old Virgin” and “Austin Powers”. The site has formed partnerships with a number of studios, so all of this is done legally. Unfortunately, PopTok is going to run into a number of problems. Only users that have installed the PopTok plugin can see clips immediately - everyone else just gets a link to a page that shows the movie. It’s unlikely that many people will take the time to open their browsers for a three second payoff, so the program is going to have a hard time gaining traction.

Powerset (website)

Powerset is a search engine that focuses on natural language processing. In other words, Powerset will not search based simply on keywords alone, but will try to understand the search phrase as a whole. The goal of the product is to make searching more “natural and intuitive.” Powerset launched a limited showcase version of its site to the public in May 2008.

Timetube (website)

Timetube is an interactive timeline site, that takes the mostly unsorted mess of videos that is YouTube and arranges them by date, offering a useful (and often unexpected) perspective on recent events. Links to each video are situated across a horizontal timeline, with emphasis placed on the most popular videos (they appear bigger). Users can expand or contract the timeline to isolate a particular time period, and the viewing window features a handy “next event” button.The site is a great diversion. TimeTube seems like it could be a handy reference for getting quick overviews on current events, but at this point it won’t be much more than a novelty for most people. Videos are placed according to when they were uploaded, which isn’t always indicative of when the events shown were actually taking place, making the validity of the timeline shaky at best. That said, if the site can figure out a way to keep dates consistent, TimeTube could evolve into a powerful tool.

NewsWare MSNBC : playing games with news (website)

MSNBC is launching some new toys for its news service that let you scan headlines in creative (and goofy) ways, and even play games with them. They're all part of the MSNBC NewsWare service. Spectra is the service's new headline viewer. You select the categories you want to see, and it throws them up in an orbiting view for you. Each category has a color associated with it, which presumably gives you some subliminal clue as to where each headline fits in your consciousness. Unfortunately, you cannot select the stories in the orbital view directly to learn more about them. The color coding also gets used in what may be the dumbest news gizmo I've ever seen: The application can connect to your Webcam and throw headlines up on the screen based on the color of what the camera is seeing. Wear a red shirt and you'll see a lot of Top Headlines. Green: Travel or sports (depending on the shade). Want to see latest videos? Hold an orange up to your camera. Really, you can't make this stuff up. Other developments: The NewsBlaster game, where you have to shoot like-colored orbs that release headlines, which you also have to shoot for points. What fun! The most sober of the new products is the NewsScroller widget, which lets you select which categories of news you like (using the same GrrAnimals colors of Spectra) and which you can then embed in your social site, blog, or start page. The widget does, though, let you select the importance to you of each news category, and will give you more or fewer stories per category to match. That's pretty smart.

Sightix : social networking meets search (website)

When you search for something using the Sightix technology on a social network, it searches the content of everyone you are connected with, and ranks results gleaned from each user based on the strength of their connection to you. Ari Gottesmann, vice president of Sightix, gave me this example: Say you're searching for a nightclub. The clubs your friends talk about will get a higher relevance than your friends of friends. It's much more likely that this ranking will yield results that work for you than searching a general engine that doesn't give extra weight to your friends' recommendations. The product also works as a people search engine of a sort. If there's a good result from someone way out in your extended network, this tool will help you connect with them. The Sightix company, originally in the business intelligence business, has given its social search product a rich and complex interface.

Mininova Heads Towards 5 Billion Downloads (website)

Lycos Cinema (website)

Lycos Cinema launched over a year ago and gave visitors the opportunity to watch older content simultaneously with each other using patented “simulstream” technology. The idea is that half the fun of watching a movie at the theater, or a TV show on the couch, comes from the people around you, and it’s important to preserve that personal relationship element. The new version of Lycos Cinema is intended to enhance that social experience of simultaneous video playback. Lycos has built out a new XMPP chat client that lets people talk about the shows they are watching. And a redesigned user interface highlights your friends’ media consumption preferences with member profiles that contain personal calendars, watchlists, and recently purchased movies

Web Trend MAP3 2008 Beta (map)

My favorite achitect designers from Japan have release a Beta map of web 2008. They present you with the 2008 Web Trend Map, in all its beautiful beta glory. This time they have taken almost 300 of the most influential and successful websites and pinned them down to the greater Tokyo-area train map.

The following diagram for 2007 was already amazing.

Internet Trends report

| View | Upload your own

Key takeaways:

• YouTube + Facebook page views > Google + Yahoo page views
• 6/10 top internet sites are social (youtube, live.com, facebook, hi5, wikipedia, orkut); none were on the list in 2005
• 16% of total time online is spent on “social connections,” up from 0% three years ago
• YouTube has 258 million users, 50% visit weekly or more
• >50% of Facebook users log in daily, 95% of Facebook users have used at least one third party application
• Skype revenue is $1.67/user/year, up 9% Y/Y
• 14 million photos uploaded daily on Facebook
• Google + Yahoo = 61% of U.S. Online Ad Revenue
• Google: $4.4b ad revenue in Q4, paid out $1.4 billion to partners
• Yahoo: $1.6 billion in ad revenue in Q4, paid out $429 million to partners

PageRank for Product Image Search (paper)

Authors: Yushi Jing(Georgia Institute of Technology and Google, Inc.), Shumeet Baluja(Google Inc.)
Abstract: In this paper, we cast the image-ranking problem into the task of identifying "authority" nodes on an inferred visual similarity graph and propose an algorithm to analyze the visual link structure that can be created among a group of images. Through an iterative procedure based on the PageRank computation, a numerical weight is assigned to each image; this measures its relative importance to the other images being considered. The incorporation of visual signals in this process differs from the majority of large-scale commercial-search engines in use today. Commercial search-engines often solely rely on the text clues of the pages in which images are embedded to rank images, and often entirely ignore the content of the images themselves as a ranking signal. To quantify the performance of our approach in a real-world system, we conducted a series of experiments based on the task of retrieving images for 2000 of the most popular products queries. Our experimental results show significant improvement, in terms of user satisfaction and relevancy, in comparison to the most recent Google Image Search results.

Viewdle, face recognition (website)

Viewdle, a startup developing facial recognition technology for video, has received an unspecified amount of funding fromKIT KIT Capital. As part of the deal, Viewdle will partner up with ROO, another KIT portfolio company focused on IPTV broadcasting. The partnership will provide ROO with full and exclusive access to Viewdle’s white label technology. Both companies will also work together to promote each other’s services. Reuters currently uses Viewdle’s technology to index the people in its video archives (see the Viewdle homepage for an example of what this looks like). A coverage of their presentation can be found here. The last (and only) time ROO came on a radar was over a year ago when News Corporation invested in the company without Fox Interactive’s knowledge.

VisualComplexity.com (website)

Visual Complexity is intends to be a unified resource space for anyone interested in the visualization of complex networks. The project's main goal is to leverage a critical understanding of different visualization methods, across a series of disciplines, as diverse as Biology, Social Networks or the World Wide Web. I truly hope this space can inspire, motivate and enlighten any person doing research on this field. Not all projects shown here are genuine complex networks, in the sense that they aren’t necessarily at the edge of chaos, or show an irregular and systematic degree of connectivity. However, the projects that apparently skip this class were chosen for two important reasons. They either provide advancement in terms of visual depiction techniques/methods or show conceptual uniqueness and originality in the choice of a subject. Nevertheless, all projects have one trait in common: the whole is always more than the sum of its parts.

Oskope Visual Search Engines (website)

Playing with oScope, you will find a fascinating search application, that displays results visually from eBay, Flickr, Amazon, and YouTube sources. As a user you have several options for how the results are displayed (i.e. display as list, pile, graph, etc.). I found the graph option very useful when searching eBay results as it allowed me to view the results across two axes - the first from low to high price, and the other relating to the time until the auction closes. Yet another example of how rapidly the web is becoming visual/image-based!

New visual business & legal news (website)

An impressive business news website that uses IntellectSpace FN to show the 'story behind story' by visually mapping key relationships that shape financial & legal headlines. In presenting an alternative method of conducting market research & analysis, NewsVisual provides a visual picture of how common connections & personal relationships come into play amidst the complexities of major corporate deals & events.


In what appears to be a successful turnaround for an ailing auto company, Ford Motor CoCEO/President Alan Mulally in the company’s statement. Mr Mulally gave an indication of how the company’s plan will affect its future growth with the following comments:“In the past several years, we have substantially restructured these businesses. We believe this is an indication that our efforts to leverage Ford’s global assets across the world will bear fruit. Going forward, we remain committed to our key business objectives, including our goal of reaching North America and overall Automotive profitability in 2009 despite the challenging economic conditions.” The company’s leadership team has an excellent brain trust at its disposal. (NYSE:F) reported on Thursday that it went from a net loss of $282 million in the first-quarter 2007 to a net income of $100 million in the first-quarter 2008. This was a turnaround that had very little to do with luck or chance and had everything to do with the company’s cool-headed leadership skills. The company’s strategic plan for cost-cutting and growth paid off.“The results of this quarter are encouraging, particularly our outstanding performance in Europe and South America,” said Ford

Netvibes to open source its widget platform (website)

Netvibes a developer of customizable start pages plans to make its widget platform, application programming interfaces, and iPhone version open source, according to CEO Tariq Krim. We want to compete with Google widgets," Krim said. "Our container supports Google widgets and every other platform. If we release our code, people will leverage it and grow the reach of our platform." Krim hopes that supporting a broad range of platforms, including Windows Vista and Windows Live, Mac OS X, Opera, Yahoo, and Google, will inspire the developer community to adopt and innovate on the Netvibes platform. Netvibes will make money with sponsored widgets, Netvibes Universes, and business services. Opening up the code to developers will enable them to compete on more equal footing with Netvibes as well.

Web 1 2 3 4... Radar Networks (website)

As the Web swells with more and more data, the predominant way of sifting through all of that data—keyword search—will one day break down in its ability to deliver the exact information we want at our fingertips. In fact, some argue that keyword search is already delivering diminishing returns—as the slide above by Nova Spivack implies. Spivack is the CEO and founder of semantic Web startup Radar Networks and is pushing his view that semantic search will help solve these problems. But anyone frustrated by the sense that it takes longer to find something on Google today than it did even a year ago knows there is some truth to his argument. “Keyword search is okay,” he says, “but if the information explosion continues we need something better.” Today, there are about 1.3 billion people on the Web, and more than 100 million active Websites. As more people pile on, the amount of information on the Web keeps growing exponentially to accommodate all those seekers, and they themselves feel compelled to put their own personal and social information onto the Web as well.At a certain point, with billions and billions of Web pages to sift through, keyword search just won’t cut it anymore. It’s a needle-in-the-haystack problem, with the haystacks just getting bigger and bigger every second.

GoogleMap + Youtube = Video Map (website)

On Virtual Video Map you can view videos from different corners of the world. The map looks pretty crowded, so you can zoom in to focus on a country or a region. Click on a red balloon and play a video from that country: some videos are touristic, other videos are just funny. You can even find music videos. Now, local businesses can offer virtual tours of their facilities, post product demos, or as TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld put it, any small company can essentially put up its own TV commercial. Google Earth added YouTube video last year, so this expansion to maps is no surprise.But the big winner from this announcement is TurnHere, a company that creates custom videos for its clients. Not only is this another reason for local businesses to make enticing, professional-looking video, but the example used by the Google Maps blog is a listing for I Dream of Cake, featuring a video created by TurnHere.

Notes: This application cannot live without a search engine beside it. Exposing tones of anchors which handle youtube sized video will not drive to the best end-user experience, so the users can go away in few seconds. The tool will probably be used more for a part included in a specific website (restaurant, hotel, ...) so for professionnal and dedicated market places.

YouTorrent (website)

YouTorrent a fairly new BitTorrent search engine that has been getting positive reviews of late, so I gave it a shot. The premise is simple: YouTorrent is a meta-search engine that indexes torrents from other sites then prioritizes the results based on the number of seeds and peers each torrent has. As a meta-search engine YouTorrent doesn’t discriminate against legal and pirated content (yes, there is legal content on BitTorrent) so it’s a case of anything goes, and this is both a strength and a weakness. If you do frequently download using BitTorrent you’ll love YouTorrent, it’s quick and the results it gives negates the need to use other sites when searching for Torrents. On the other hand YouTorrent efficiently facilitates video piracy; sure, there’s an ongoing legal argument as to whether a search engine can be held liable for indexing pirated content elsewhere, but that didn’t help TorrentSpy when the Feds came knocking. The site is hosted in the Netherlands and has a Moniker hide your details service running on the Whois record, but chances are if the owners are in the United States, it’s probably only a matter of time until the MPAA or RIAA sends in the lawyers, so give it a shot while you still can.

Notes : Today, YouTorrent switches to legal torrent. “YouTorrent’s selling points are the great interface, an ad-less design, and its ability to search most of the bigger BitTorrent sites” and since launching in January has grown to a remarkable 10 million uniques per month.