Bye-bye word search  

IT'S like this: You pass a person on the sidewalk wearing a pair of stylish shoes made of light brown leather, with a rounded toe. You'd like a pair like that. But an Internet search for "shoes, light brown, rounded toe" probably won't go very far.
Don't worry. With the new image-searching technology, you have a better chance of finding those dream shoes. The new US shopping website is like.com. Shoppers can upload a picture, instead of keywords, and let it search online for a similar item.
This is a first, said Munjal Shah, creator of like.com: "Every other search before this was text-to-photo. But some things are hard to describe with a few keywords."
The new image-mapping search technology may be a fundamental change in the way people use the Internet, said Kevin Barnhurst, head of University of Illinois' (US) department of communications.
"The idea that you should be able to shift into the visual and think in visual terms is the next step. It's exciting," said Barnhurst.
Shah explains how the website works: "We convert each picture into about 10,000 numbers, which represent more than 30 features, including shape, color, texture and other details. When you search, what you're doing is comparing the numbers for different items. So, strictly speaking, we don't compare two pictures, we compare two maths representations."
Have I seen you?
With like.com, people can select clothes from celebrity photos. They can also use traditional text filters to sort by brand, style and price.
Besides online shopping, the new technology could soon be used to recognize human faces. A new image search engine being developed by the Swedish company Polar Rose is trying to make computers recognize faces.
Polar Rose's system analyzes a photo to create a 3D sculpture of a person's face, which can account for changes in angle and lighting. It then encodes the 3D portrait as a set of numbers, which is called a "face print". Different face prints can be checked to see if they seem to be the same person.
Polar Rose is still in beta, and it's not clear how well the service will work. The photos on the Web have bad quality, different expressions and different poses. "it's not easy. Even for people it's hard to distinguish between two photos sometimes," said Mikkel Thagaard, Polar Rose vice-president. AGENCIES
Privacy concerns
FACIAL recognition technology could make it easier to find pictures of friends online. That's just fine. But does it have other more evil implications?
Well, yes. Imagine shopping in a supermarket when someone happens to snap a picture and you're in the background. Then that person posts it on a public site. A search engine like Polar Rose could allow your boss to find out you were out playing about on a day when you called in sick.
US lawyer Lee Tien warned that this kind of technology could aid stalkers in tracking down victims, or it could allow employers, insurance companies, and the government to look into people's lives.
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beta: 试用(测试)阶段 celebrity: 名人 encode: 编码 filter: 过滤 stalker: 暗中追踪者  
  
  
你身上可能发生这样的事：你在人行道上偶遇一个人，她穿着圆头的亮棕色皮鞋，很是漂亮，
你也想要一双这样的鞋。可当你在互联网上用“鞋，亮棕色，圆头”这几个关键词搜索时，结果却可能与你想象差距甚远。
别担心，利用新的图象搜索技术，你找到你理想鞋子的机会更大了。美国一家新的购物网络like.com推出了此项技术，购物者可以不用关键词而使用上传照片的方式进行搜索，在网上寻找相似的物品。
此网站的创建者Munjal Shah称：“这项技术是个首创，此前的搜索引擎都是从文本到照片。但是有些东西是很难用几个词来描述出来的。”
伊利诺斯大学通信技术系的系主任，Kevin Barnhurst说道：“这项图片搜索技术可能会改变人们使用互联网的方式。”
“下一步人们（使用英特网的方式和想法）将转变为视角角度以及视角术语，这是十分令人期待的。”
Shah解释了网站的运作方式：“我们把每张图片转化成10000个号码，每个号码都代表着30个以上的特征，包括了形状，颜色，质地和其他的细节。当你搜索时，你所要做的仅仅是从不同的条目中比较号码。因此，严格来说，我们并不是比较两幅图片而是进行数字陈述的比较。”
我看见你了吗？
通过like.com,人们可以从名人照片中选择衣服，也可以通过传统的文本搜索过滤框进行品牌，风格和价格的搜索。
除了网上购物，这项新技术也可用于人脸辨认。瑞典一家叫Polar Rose的公司正在开发一项新的图象搜索技术，可以使电脑能辨认人脸。
Polar Rose公司的系统通过分析人脸部的照片，创造一个3D的立体雕塑形象，充分表现出各个角落和光线的变化。然后它再对3D肖像进行编码，分解成一系列的数字，称为“脸印”。
通过查看不同的“脸印”可以确认它们是否属于同一个人。
Polar Rose公司此项技术仍处在测试阶段，它是否好用还不清楚。网站上的照片有的质量不佳，或者照片里的人表情和姿势不同。Polar Rose副总裁Mikkel Thagaard 说道：“这不太容易，因为即使是人，有时也很难区分两张照片。”
保密利益
面部识别技术使寻找网友照片更加容易，这是不错，但是这是否也带来了一些不利的因素呢？
也许的确是这样。假如你在超市购物，碰巧有个人照了张照片，而你刚好在他的背景里。然后这个人把照片贴到了一个公共网站。而你的老板就可以通过一个像Polar Rose公司这样的搜索引擎，发现你借生病为由而到处闲逛。
美国的律师Lee Tien则说，通过这项技术，调查者能追踪到受害者，雇主、保险公司及政府部门也能观察人们的生活。

thank you for posting and effort,renren2b!