Orangeinks

Zerox’ Image Search Algorithm will Tell you if Photos are Good or Bad

 

Zerox’ Aesthetic Quality Image Search uses and algorithm that divides photos into two very straightforward categories, photos that suck and photos that doesn’t suck. If you think of it, when you are looking for a decent photo in the internet and don’t really have an eye for photos, what really will matter to you is that if is it any good or not. Zerox’ image search project will help you figure out if the photos that you are looking at are any good or not. This will be useful when there’s nobody else around to ask for an opinion.

The engine specializes in different subjects, like beaches, portraits and skies. The photos go through an image categorization engine that understands the content of the images (no texts and tags are required for the engine to process the images). The algorithm uses different parameters to evaluate the photos according to a particular subject matter. Then, the aesthetics rating engine separates the images with good and bad aesthetic elements.

Aside from telling bad and good photos apart, Aesthetic Quality also offers a few tips on how to capture images that are worthy of their “Good Images” section.

Here’s an example of the photography tip:

“A good beach image contains high cliffs, rugged coastlines, eroded landforms, pounding seas. Fast shutter speed (higher than 1/250) will stop the motion of the waves and freeze sea spray. Slow shutter speed will blur the waves and soften the seascape.

Add human elements and a sense of scale.

Head for piers and rocky promontories to include the sea in the foreground.

A polarizing filter will often improve the colour and contrast around the water.

Ref: Lonely Planet’s Guide To Travel Photography

 

Tags: Aesthetics, Image Search, Photos, search, Zerox

The Internet’s Dirty Little Secret

Internet company algorithms are tailoring the flow of information based on what they think we need and not what we want. Eli Pariser has a very interesting insight about this matter and he’s not only talking about “feeds” but all sorts of web projects that tend to “customize” the web for us. Do we really need a customized web, tailored to meet our internet needs and get information based on what an algorithm is suggesting?

 

Tags: algorithm, internet, search, Technology

SortFix Recommends Keywords for your Search

SortFix is a new search engine that will help you enrich your search experience. They created a graphical interface that will boost your search skills. It will recommend additional keywords as you search/type the basic ones.

The power of Sortfix is not in its indexing algorithm. The generated search results still come from the giant search engine, Google. What Sortfix is trying to do is improve the way the user searches by providing additional keywords that is related to the initial search keyword(s). Behind the scene an intelligent algorithm imitates a professional searcher – by scanning and examining the results, it reveals the significant keywords and terms that will help you to define a better question.

This is a great site to recommend to novice users. It will greatly improve their search skills while still getting results from Google. By using SortFix’s unique interface you can play with the suggested keywords, and create your own individual and precise query, and when you ask a precise question you usually get the right answer.

Demo Video

Tags: search, search-engine, Sortfix, Technology

Sputnik: Simplifying Search for the Best Online Tools and Applications

Sputnik is a website that aims to deliver you the best of the web in the simplest manner possible. It defines itself as the first Online System. It is a system that organizes and selects the best online tools and application while delivering them to you in very few clicks possible.

The free service divides the selected applications into the most popular categories. The system’s search tool allows you to make fast and targeted search. You’ll be able to take advantage of 50 search engines divided into different categories (between the other web, images, videos, music, download, encyclopedias, maps, etc). The results that Sputnik provides are the results that are provided by the best search engines available on the web.

Listed are the rest of Sputnik’s features

Communication: connects you to the most popular e-mail providers, Instant Messaging services, social networks, SMS, fax… all for free.

Music: listen to 24 hours/24h music, watch live concerts in streaming… and all the best music services in one click.

Movies: offers a list of movies (divided by genre) which can be viewed in streaming (that means without need to download).

TV: provides a selection of free online TV channels.

News: allows to read the daily news and to access to the best national and international newpapers online.

Games: allows to play games online, also in real time with other users.

Language Tools: provides translating services, dictionaries, language lessons and applications which allow other user, in the dialogue with the selected language.

Apps: allows the access to the best online applications without need to download (from text elaboration to the photo editing from the file transfer to SMS sending…)

All the services found in Sputnik are completely free and does not require you to download. All you need is your browser and you can enjoy free online tools and applications.

Tags: Online System, search, search tool, search-engine, Sputnik

Yauba: Search Anonymously

It’s been a while since I’ve heard of a new search engine being released. There are other search tools out there that have made their debut but most of them are just piggybacking on popular ones and aggregating results. Yauba is a new at the search engine scene and is still running on early beta/late alpha preview release. If you’re wondering what this new search engine has to offer its users aside from giving search results, the answer to that would be anonymity.

The Indian based search engine aims to transform the way people find information online, while providing maximum protection for safety, security and privacy. It’s not every day you find a search engine who is not interested in gathering data from its users.

Most search engines try to gather and record as much information about their users as possible. They (or their parent companies) operate massive server farms with even more massive databases that secretly record your entire search history, your private contacts, the identity of your family and friends, your personal emails, your conversations and chats, your browsing habits, your physical location, details on the software you use on your computer, your IP address, and much much more.

At Yauba, we completely reject the view that search engines somehow need to keep mountains of data on their own users. Instead, we take the exact opposite approach. We do everything we can to protect the privacy of our users.

Aside from the total privacy that Yauba is offering, it also takes the semantic approach to search. This simply means that their search engine is more human than others. Semantic means focusing on understanding what the person is searching for rather than comparing keywords and displaying search results based on page rank or page popularity. They clearly stated that they could not care less on how big their index gets and cares more about intelligent search results.

With Yauba, you only need to know how to click a mouse. Yauba does all the hard work for you, by instantaneously auto-extracting, auto-filtering, auto-classifying, auto-refining, auto-categorizing, and auto-suggesting tens of billions of web pages, images, rich media files, and many other file types on your behalf so that you can find the exact information you need in an easy to use manner. Yauba’s dynamic indexing and results ranking algorithm ensures that you receive the most relevant results, even if you have never used a search engine before.

Tags: search, search-engine, Semantic

Playericious: Play Search Results from Delicious and Magnolia

Playericious is a very interesting web app that allows you to literally play webpages that are bookmarked on Delicious and Magnolia in a slideshow manner. It’s like StumbleUpon, only lazier.

Delicious and Magnolia have an unbelievable resource of information of human classified quality resources. It is a giant listing of sites that people have thought were worth saving, categoriezed by tag and updated with the freshest sites. Social Bookmarking is the future of search directories.

The app is easy enough to use. Just type in the keyword you want to search or the login for any of the two social bookmarking sites mentioned above. You can further filter the results by choosing the type of results you want to be played on your screen. After setting the frequency just hit go and watch all those tagged webpages play. Like in any player, there is of course the pause button. If you happen to find a page that you like and want to read further, just hit the pause button. You also get a preview title for next page on the slide which is extra neat.

Playericious is a fun and different way to search for keywords in delicious and magnolia. It would be great though If the author of the app could add a bookmarking option, one that allows users to bookmark (for example on Delicious) a page that is viewed using Playericious.

Tags: delicious, magnolia, play, playericious, search, slide