We’ve heard about Nokia’s new Point and Find service, but it’s still very much in the testing phase, not to mention limited to movie posters. But now Amazon’s poised to unveil its own object-recognising app for the iPhone, letting shoppers snap a photo of a product, have it identified, and then buy it through Amazon.
According to Gizmodo, the web superstore will unveil the app tomorrow, and it’ll work with almost any product.
There’s a catch though: instead of using clever image recognition technology, like Nokia’s project, Amazon will take your image and send it to its Mechanical Turk service, where real people will try to match it to a product for sale on the website.
You’ll get a result in “5 minutes to 24 hours” but the system is also fraught with opportunities for error. As Gizmodo points out, “how will they tell one giant black HDTV from another, for instance, especially with the iPhone’s crappy camera?”
It’s a valid question, but since the app is due for release tomorrow, we’ll soon know the answer. Or rather, we’ll know the answer up to 24 hours later.
Out 4 December | £free | Amazon (via Gizmodo)
