Microsoft's Bing today announced the launch of new Visual Search capabilities for the Bing app on iOS and Android. The new capabilities build on what was introduced with Bing on the Web and now allows you to use your phone camera to learn more about your environment. To get started with the new Visual Search feature all you need to do is click on the camera icon from within the Bing app on iOS or Android. Once you do that Bing will be able to identify the object and give you more information and additional links to explore. You can even use this feature to shop for fashion items and home furnishings. The Bing team says that more capabilities will come to Visual Search in the coming months, so be sure to give your feedback to Microsoft. Visual Search integration is also coming to Microsoft Launcher on Android soon and Microsoft Edge for Android today, so there will definitely be more ways than one to enjoy this new experience. Share This Post:<doc-sep>Bing has launched new intelligent visual search capabilities which makes it possible to search the web using your smartphone camera. The new visual search capabilities are initially only available in the United States on the Bing app for iOS and Android, and for Microsoft Launcher (Android only). These features are also being rolling out for Microsoft Edge for Android and will be coming soon to Microsoft Edge for iOS and Bing.com. To use Bing’s new visual search capabilities, users can take a photo using the Bing app or upload a photo from their camera roll. Bing will identify the object in question and give you more information by providing additional links to explore. Bing’s new visual search capabilities also allow users to shop from their photos for fashion and home furnishings. “Let’s say you see a friend’s jacket you like, but don’t know its brand or where to purchase. Upload a pic into the app’s search box and Bing will return visually-similar jackets, prices, and details for where to purchase,” Microsoft said. The video below shows Bing’s visual search capabilities in action. Now read: Microsoft adds AI features to Bing<doc-sep>Microsoft has launched a new “visual search” function for Bing, which lets users snap a picture of something with their phone to search for it online. The feature looks very similar to Google Lens and offerings we’ve seen from third parties that leverage the power of AI to perform quick and accurate object recognition on photos. The new visual search is available in a range of apps, including the standalone Bing app on iOS and Android, Microsoft Launcher on Android, Microsoft Edge on Android, and coming soon to Edge on iOS. You can use it to search for things like breeds of dogs, famous landmarks, and even items of clothing. The app will try to identify what it sees and, in the case of consumer goods, find places to buy them online. “Sometimes, it is almost impossible to describe what you want to search for using words,” said Microsoft’s product lead for Bing Images, Vince Leung, in a blog post. Visual search is quickly becoming a commodity product for big tech companies like Google and Microsoft, but the feature can sometimes be a let-down in real-life usage. It’s bound to improve, though, as firms catalog more data and speed up their machine learning algorithms. Before we know it, the world around us will be as searchable as a URL.<doc-sep>Yes, the major public clouds offer a lot. But what you may not know are the limitations, and how open clouds make the difference. Elevate your enterprise data technology and strategy at Transform 2021. A keyboard isn’t necessarily the fastest way to find cat pictures — or furniture, for that matter. Today, Microsoft’s Bing launched a mobile version of its Visual Search tool that pulls up relevant pictures, product listings, and text snippets through photos your phone captures. The new and improved Visual Search, which is built into the Microsoft Launcher for Android, the Bing app for iOS and Android, and Edge for iOS and Android, works more or less like Google Lens, Google’s image recognition service for smartphones. It’ll scan images (from either your camera or photo gallery) for barcodes and objects such as flowers and animals, plus notable landmarks like the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty. And if you point your camera at a piece of clothing, furniture, or home decor, it’ll show visually similar products and their prices, along with links to stores where they’re in stock. It’s fair to say that in this domain, Microsoft is a bit late to the object recognition game. Google Lens came to Pixel-branded devices in 2017 and, thanks to native integration with the Google Photos app, non-Pixel devices (including the iPhone) in March. Meanwhile, Bixby Vision, Samsung’s in-house visual search feature, rolled out alongside the Galaxy S8 and S8+ in summer 2017. Gallery: Testing Bing's Visual Search So better late than never? Not exactly. Annoyingly, Bing’s Visual Search doesn’t detect barcodes automatically — in the Bing app, after you tap the camera shortcut that launches Visual Search, you’re forced to select a second button that activates barcode scanning. Worse still, Bing’s algorithm misses the mark more often than not. In my brief testing, it mistook the cover of Woodward and Bernstein’s All The President’s Men as “Bob Woodward,” which obviously isn’t quite right. And it couldn’t ID a box of Starbucks Keurig cups. It’s also a bit bare-bones at the moment. You won’t find a feature like Google Lens’ text selection, which lets you copy and paste words from printouts, brochures, and business cards. And unlike Bixby Vision, Visual Search can’t read wine bottles and serve up information about them. That’s not to suggest it’s completely useless, though. Visual Search had an easier time finding lookalikes for a lamp and painting, and it picked out a Diet Pepsi can from a crowded shelf in my refrigerator without any trouble. But as with Google Lens, Bixby, and the rest of the computer vision apps before it, there’s clearly room for improvement. Here’s hoping it’s just the start.<doc-sep>
Google has been the biggest name in search for so long, it’s a household name. For the past several years, though, Microsoft has been trying to compete with Bing, its own search engine. Today, Microsoft is announcing that Bing can now use Visual Search, just like Google Lens. Revealed in a blog post today, Visual Search is coming to Bing. Available in the Bing app for Android or iOS as well as the Microsoft Launcher on Android, this new Visual Search tool works a whole lot like Google Lens. Simply tapping the camera button opens up a live viewfinder which users can then use to take a photo and have Bing use AI to recognize objects within the photo. Obviously, it’s not a new technology, but Microsoft is definitely making it easily accessible to users. Whether or not it turns out to be more capable than Google Lens remains to be seen, but Microsoft says it can identify things such as landmarks or flowers and can help with shopping too. For example, imagine you see a landmark or flower and want to learn more. Simply take a photo using one of the apps, or upload a picture from your camera roll. Bing will identify the object in question and give you more information by providing additional links to explore. You can even shop from your photos for fashion and home furnishings. Let’s say you see a friend’s jacket you like, but don’t know its brand or where to purchase. Upload a pic into the app’s search box and Bing will return visually-similar jackets, prices, and details for where to purchase. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More. Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news: