Visual Search Engines

Image by Thomas Hawk via Flickr

Visual search engines are generally web-based tools just like Google and they require no extra software or plugin to be installed. You can just feed in a image and start diving inside their visual result pages: select a visualization type, re-arrange your results, sort them by date, relevance, or by other possible parameters.

Within the set of visual search engines available out there, there are some that allow you to search standard Web-based content as well as others capable of retrieving also network contacts, similar sites, videos, images, podcasts, and much more.

Basic categories of VSE :

• Technology Type: Software or web-based.
• Visualization types: Dynamic map, stacks, list, tag clouds, etc.
• Content Sources: Web, Wikipedia, videos, images, Amazon Books, Twitter, etc.
• Search options: Sort by date, exclude keywords, search inside domain, RSS, etc.

Image via Wikipedia

Visual search engines are another revolution in progress now. Even though so many visual search engines came nothing is successful because visual search engine is much more complex than we think. In visual search engine, the input is nothing but the image which will  be processed and converted into a set of numerical maps and then after doing a lot of processing it will fetch the relevant information about the image.

There are so many technical problems involved . Some of them are

• So many images as to be there in the database
• Good pattern matching technique has to be find out.

e.g Take two pictures with different background color  as a human being we can recognize both belong to the same thing, but what about machines. These knowledge has to be given to the database. So it is an enhancement and developing still now.

By

Rajesh

III-MCA

YouTube Hacked, Justin Bieber Videos Were the New Target

It appears YouTube has become the target of a hacker attack, specifically targeting videos of pop singer Justin Bieber.

Videos relating to the star have been hit with a redirect hack with a number of different payloads. We’ve seen one redirect to an infamous, explicit “One Man One Jar” video while another covers the screen in the words “OMG Faggot”. A Twitter search confirms that the problem is widespread. Some users are reporting seeing a banner claiming that Bieber is dead.

So, what’s causing this? Coder Richard Cunningham writes on his Posterous blog that it relates to video comments.

“It looks like they are deliberately using malformed HTML to get past YouTube’s checks for HTML sanitisation in the comments. The comment I’ve seen is using the long forgotten marquee tag and a javascript alert, though in principle it could be expanded to support XSS type flaws.”

Comments on many videos, some not related to Bieber, have code like this on them:

Discussions on the notorious 4chan bulletin board site point to members of its community being to blame. Here’s a screenshot of one such message.

Google has released the following statement regarding the hack:

“We took swift action to fix a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability on youtube.com that was discovered several hours ago. Comments were temporarily hidden by default within an hour, and we released a complete fix for the issue in about two hours. We’re continuing to study the vulnerability to help prevent similar issues in the future.”

By,
Jayarathina Madharasan. Y
MCA – III Year
http://technophilia.madharasan.com/

Bluetooth 4.0 Specifications Revealed

Image via Wikipedia

While Bluetooth 3.0 has been alive and kicking more for than a year, very few devices has featured it since its release in April 2009. This didn’t stop the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) from developing the technology further, and now, they have announced Bluetooth 4.0.

While developing the Bluetooth 4.0 Core Specification, SIG’s primary focus areas were low power consumption using new ‘low energy technology’, apart from enhanced range and multi-vendor operability. They seem to have achieved what they set out to do, and claim that it will allow for several years’ worth of usage on standard coin-cells. This will allow for very small and low cost devices to incorporate Bluetooth as a connectivity option, as it doesn’t require large batteries to power it. This hallmark ‘low energy technology’ feature of Bluetooth 4.0 promises to have “new connectivity applications in the fields of health care, fitness, security and home entertainment”.

According to the Executive Director of SIG, Michael Foley, “Bluetooth wireless technology can now, with the hard work of our members and our world-class qualification program, really do it all.”

Complete specifications are available at Bluetooth.org. You can check out list of enhancements below in the meanwhile, which are advantages of the low energy technology:

• Ultra-low peak, average and idle mode power consumption
• Ability to run for years on standard coin-cell batteries
• Low cost
• Multi-vendor interoperability
• Enhanced range

Interoperability testing and qualification will take place at SIG’s 37th testing event, UnPlugFest (UPF) 37, which is scheduled for 4-8th October, 2010, in Barcelona, Spain. The first devices featuring Bluetooth 4.0 are officially expected by the end of the year.

Watch a video demo or view the entire specification on their site.

By,
Jayarathina Madharasan. Y
MCA – III Year
http://technophilia.madharasan.com/