Google Image Search With Image Test

This article deals with testing Google new image search using an image.


Google has a new feature in their image search where you can drag and drop an image and it will find like images. I decided to test it with an "average" image of an underwater shot of a brightly colored little fish as pictured above.

I dropped the image onto the search bar and waited a few seconds for it to upload. Then I got the following result.

Google thinks that the images are similar. Obviously it didn't recognize the fish or the coral reef or the fact that it was an underwater picture. Some of the results returned were of a flower, art, desserts and multi-colored mosaic things.

Obviously it picked up yellow as the primary search term and hoped that what it produced was also yellow. This somehow reminds me of a dumb blonde on a multiple choice test.

I decided to try it with something else. I downloaded a picture of Albert Einstein.

I then renamed it to something silly so that the name of the pic wouldn't give any clues. Google knew that it was Albert Einstein right away. They probably developed the algorithm using famous people and Einstein is one of them.

Then I change the image by altering the horizontal to vertical ratio, and used the eraser tool to erase the background. I used a Gimp filter to render lava designs.

In the web portion,it said best guess was Albert Einstein, so it was pretty good. Here is the visual results.

Winston Churchill is numbered among the results as well as Superman and George Bush. George Bush ain't no Einstein. However, Einstein does show up in the results.

The tool is getting there, but not quite there yet.

I was thinking of uploading my own pic to see what the results would be, but I am afraid that Google would keep it forever and use it as a test case. Even though there motto is "Do no evil", I still don't trust them with all of my information.