The Swedish company, Polar Rose, has released a beta version of its browser plug-in for Firefox that uses facial recognition, allowing users to search for images of faces  based on visual cues, rather than the surrounding text.

“We are very excited by the enhanced information and linking offered by visionary search, and are looking forward to creating a whole new experience by making photos searchable in a new way”, said Nikolaj Nyholm, CEO of Polar Rose.

Polar Rose’s technology models a 3D representation of a face, known as a “facial fingerprint,” from a 2D image; after the model has been created, the plug-in can search for the same, or similar looking images on the web.

“In short, we’ve spent the dark winter months of Scandinavia crouched over our keyboards and screens getting ready to go from private to public beta, a process which admittedly has taken longer than anticipated,” said Mikkel Thagaard, Vice President of Business Development at Polar Rose.

The Polar Rose plug-in makes photos searchable in a much similar manner to the way text is searched on the Internet today, and we’ve been patiently waiting since last December for this plug-in to arrive.

The plug-in is currently only available for the Firefox browser; although, the Polar Rose blog suggests that the Internet Explorer version is coming soon.

Nikolaj told TECH.BLORGE.com, a few months back, that a JavaScript API (much likeable to the Google Maps API) will also be released upon launch, allowing developers to add the Polar Rose functionality to any online album by embedding just a few lines of code.

Currently the beta release is by invitation only, but you can go to the Polar Rose website and sign up “to be notified when we have an invitation ready for you.”

Related:

Entry was posted on Sunday, July 15th, 2007 at 8:27 am under Internet.

Read more entries by George Gardner.
Stumble It!