Tag: wearables

A version of the CamFind app from Image Searcher has been developed for the wearable device.

The startup’s image recognition app has been designed to work with Google Glass, enabling a wearer of the optical head-mounted display to look at something and CamFind will identify whatever the user may be looking at within seconds.

CamFind utilizes AI for image recognition.

The visual search app recognizes images by using artificial intelligence (AI). It combines this technology with crowdsourcing, giving humans the ability to correct the identification of images.

In an exclusive interview with VentureBeat, the CEO of Image Searcher, Dominik Mazur, said that in as little as 12 seconds, CamFind is capable of generating an accurate answer for an image query and it can take mere milliseconds if the computer vision recognizes it on the first try.

Brad Folkens, the chief technology officer said that “It really takes the friction out of the process.” Folkens added that “When we started this, we found that mobile search was broken. We make it so you can look at something and then get an answer. When you can do it fast, it turns from a novelty into a utility.”

Folkens did say that while 12 seconds might seem like a long time to wait for an answer when people have become accustomed to wanting immediate results, it is much faster than any other alternative available to users while they are on the go. For instance, the visual search app can identify clothing brands or shoe brands. Therefore, if a Google Glass wearer liked the shoes someone else was wearing, they could find out the brand. In the future, when Glass steps into the e-commerce space, consumers will be able to buy what they see when they are inspired to do so.

The CamFind Google Glass app is likely to succeed where Google Goggles failed.

A while back, Google had previously developed a smartphone app called Google Goggles, which allowed users to take a picture of a wine bottle and obtain useful information about it. However, this app did not work most of the time and the app was taken down by Google.

It is not yet known when the CamFind app will be available for Google Glass, but Image Searcher has submitted its application for approval.

Shortly after the massive launch of the Apple Watch, this company has revealed that they have wearables of their own.

Though many had scolded Apple for waiting as long as it did to release its own smartwatch, now that it has happened, other companies are now coming out of the woodwork to announce their own upcoming entrances into this increasingly crowded segment of the wearable technology market.

Among the most recent has been TAG Heuer, as an executive has stated that its own product is in the works.

According to Jean-Claude Biver, the head of watchmaking at LVMH, the parent company of TAG Heuer, “We want to launch a smartwatch at TAG Heuer, but it must not copy the Apple Watch.” Biver expressed that the brand would have its own smartwatch, or several of them, to unveil in March at the Baselworld expo, at the very latest. Other than that, he did not provide any real details about what can be expected from the company’s entrance into wearable technology. He stated that “We cannot afford to just follow in somebody else’s footsteps.”

Biver had already made wearable technology by saying that Apple’s smartwatch was “too feminine.”

He also stated that the Apple Watch did not have the prestige and timeless appeal that have been achieved by traditional watches. He said that “This watch has no sex appeal. It’s too feminine and looks too much like the smartwatches already on the market.” Adding to his low opinion of the design of the wearable tech, he said that “To be totally honest, it looks like it was designed by a student in their first trimester.” That said, this is not the first time that a watchmaker company exec has brushed off wearable technology only to sing a different tune shortly afterward. For example, the head of the Tissot brand from Swatch originally brushed off the idea of these wearable devices saying that there has been “a lot of noise” about them but that “you don’t see them on people’s wrists.” But soon afterward the news rang of the company’s investigation into internet connected features, since then there has been a direct announcement from Swatch, stating that they were planning to release its own smartwatch as a version of one of its Touch watches which would feature fitness tracking.