14 DAY TRIAL // Evolution Robotics in partnership with Bandai Networks, Japan's leading mobile content provider, have recently announced that KDDI Corporation would be including the "ER Search" visual search engine on its new Spring 2008 "au" line of camera phones, and has made it available for download for any KDDI customer with a prior "au" camera phone. This launch marks a dramatic expansion in the market for mobile visual search, which will enable millions of consumers in Japan alone to do online searches by taking pictures of everyday objects with their camera phone.
ER Search is a mobile search engine operated by Bandai Networks and powered by Evolution Robotics' ViPR visual pattern recognition system. It works essentially using a traditional search engine, but without having to type any text or go through complicated menus. Instead, users simply snap a picture of something they're interested in and immediately get back relevant content, all in the palm of their hands.
As an example, KDDI customers will be able to take a picture of a music CD that would return links relating to the artist, hear clips from the album and purchase songs to download on their phone. If they are shopping for wine in a store, they can take a picture of the wine label and get expert reviews and recommendations on the spot. Or, if they are browsing through a catalog and see an item they'd like to buy, they can order it immediately by snapping a picture of the item on the page.
Bandai Networks had already deployed ER Search on over one million phones in Japan in 2007. With this deployment with KDDI, the number of users with access to ER Search will expand by millions more in a very short time, making it even more compelling for companies and advertisers to participate in the service.
Check out below a video demonstration of Evolution Robotics' visual search technology running on Apple's iPhone: