New tool that’s been buzzing around the blogosphere for the past couple of days is retrievr, a tool from the University of Washington that makes it possible to “draw” your Flickr search. First views, it’s in beta, and that explains it all. Amazing concept, don’t get me wrong here, this method of image searching has been a myth for years now, and it’s finally possible — great — but I wouldn’t say it’s totally gonna change the way people image search forever, because it’s not.
Unless millions of households in the world are equipped with graphics tablets, have a good mindset of which image they want to find, and at least one in each household has a Diploma in Arts, this technology isn’t exactly gonna blow the world away. Although, this isn’t to say it’s dead or the people working on it should stop right away, because even though the technology isn’t exactly superior and I don’t see it being that way in the near or for that matter distant future, it does enable a lot of possibilities (and also gives good proof that such kind of searching is actually possible). Have to wish the best of luck to team behind it though, and hope sincerely that they prove me wrong.
