Multi-Language Image Search Tool Released By University

PanImages is a new search project coming out of the University of Washington that allows users to search for images in their native language and receive far more results than with traditional search.

Emerging search engines such as Like.com allow searches via image queries, but are far from becoming mainstream. Most image search today is conducted by an analysis of the metadata around the image. So an image search on Google for “flower” returns results that have the tag “flower” in the photo metadata - 11.4 million results. But if you only speak Spanish, a search for “flores” returns just 2.2 million results.

Search engines are slowly beginning to allow cross-language queries to return more results to people who speak less popular languages. Google’s effort launched earlier this year, handles just a dozen major languages and does not address image search.

PanImages, by contrast, supports over 300 languages. Users simply type in the query and the language they are speaking and see a result set that includes translations. Clicking on a result returns Google Image and Flickr search results for that term.

The data itself is still somewhat thin, and users are asked to add translations when the site doesn’t already know what you mean. But the early results are useful, particularly if you speak a fairly obscure language. An images search for the Zulu word for refrigerator returns just two results. A similar search on PanImages returns 472,000 results.

Google Will Be Beaten By Facebook, Mahalo: Scoble

Above is part 3 of a 3 part Robert Scoble video blog series on “Why Mahalo, TechMeme, and Facebook are going to kick Google’s butt in four years.” To see the other parts scroll on the player; Part 2 at around the 6 minute mark gets to the main points*.

Essentially Scoble argues that Google is in trouble because they are unable to adapt their algorithms and business model in the face of social search sites such as Mahalo and even Facebook; Techmeme is thrown in for good measure as well. Scoble argues that the search results from sites such as Mahalo will appeal to more people due to their ability to be socially constructed as opposed to Google’s computer generated results.

As much as I think that Jason Calacanis is doing a good job with Mahalo, and that he is creating decent content for those frustrated by current search technologies, I’m not even sure Calacanis would be so bold as to argue that his company is going to kick Google’s butt in four years time.

Scoble though does open the more interesting question: what is the future of search?

I won’t even start linking to the many, many search startups that are trying to answer that question.

Scoble seemingly forgets though that even if Google’s current model doesn’t incorporate social search, there is absolutely nothing stopping Google going out and acquiring one of these companies then incorporating their model within the Google product family. I’m also not convinced that we are yet to see the David to Google’s Goliath, but I could be wrong.

* for what ever reason Kyte insists on showing only the latest video in the embed so I was unable to include Part 2 straight up.

Midwest Air to Pursue Buyout by TPG and Northwest (Update1)

By Adam Satariano Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Midwest Air Group Inc., a regional US carrier, said it would pursue a $16-a-share cash bid from buyout firm TPG Inc., spurning a takeover bid by AirTran Holdings Inc. The two sides expect to reach a definitive ...
NWA invests in Midwest Minneapolis Star Tribune (subscription)
Northwest says passive investor in Midwest takeover bid Reuters
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