Image Recognition Technology Goes Shopping

Source: 

Forbes.com

In 2011, eBay was looking to acquire companies that could speed up image recognition and augmented reality features for online retailers to capitalize on the mobile phone’s potential to help consumers make impulse purchases. In other words, photograph an image of what you want to purchase with your mobile phone and it will give you similar items which you can easily purchase from eBay.

A Swedish company, OculusAI, has refined image recognition to a science and rolled it into a new mobile app, Productify. The app lets consumers take a photo of a product and find and purchase similar products on the internet.

Emerging from a highly scientific background, the company first applied its image recognition technology to online retailers or businesses who wanted to remove pornographic images from their websites. Today, OculusAI is applying that same image recognition to a market that’s worried about keeping up with consumers on the go — eCommerce.

The global eCommerce industry generated $686 billion in 2011 and continues to grow steadily with  21% annually. At the same time, eCommerce and mCommerce retailers are faced with just for starters, a low conversion rates (only 2.85% of eCommerce visitors make a purchase) and increased product assortment translates into an obstacle for relevant search results.

Read the rest of the story here.

Original article: 

 http://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferhicks/2012/03/05/image-recognition-technology-goes-shopping/