Google image searches can be further refined thanks to a hidden feature few knew about – until this week.
A blog post by Ionut Alex Chitu has shown that by adding a simple piece of code to the end of your Google image search, can be used to refine the results. Adding “&imgtype=face” to the end of the search URL string will refine the list of images with just those of faces.
Wired blogger Adario Strange posted today that he had taken this search to the next level by replacing the word “face” with “hands” during an image search for PBS television host “Charlie Rose”. Strange notes images of Roses hands appearing, however, I was unable to duplicate these results.
This kind of image and face recognition is in its infant stages and it will be interesting to see how far Google goes, and when they will in fact release this technology openly within image searches.
Its scary to think that perhaps some day, armed only with a photo of someone, a user may be able to use the uploaded image to do a name look up and background search. While the technology (at least as far as I know) is not advanced enough to do such a thing, it is certainly within the realm of possibility.