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View Full Version : Snaptell: Camera-Driven Price Comparisons


Vincent Ferrari
12-10-2008, 04:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://snaptell.typepad.com/snaptell_blog/2008/10/snaptell-explor.html' target='_blank'>http://snaptell.typepad.com/snaptel...ell-explor.html</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"We all know you can't judge a book by its cover, and the same goes for films, music, and games. But fret not, because SnapTell's new Mobile Movie Explorer can help make sure that you never have buyer's remorse again -- just snap the picture, send it to SnapTell, and you'll get comprehensive information and reviews for the product you're interested in right on your iPhone."</em></p><p><img border="1" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//at/auto/1228877831.usr18053.png" /></p><p>I readily admit to being a bit jealous of the G1's barcode scanning app, but this one may hold me over for a bit.&nbsp; I saw it featured in the App Store on the iPhone and decided to give it a whirl.&nbsp; I took a photo of Wine for Dummies and it did a very good job, finding it almost instantly and showing me other ways to buy it online.&nbsp; What I thought would be a novelty actually works really well and I'm looking forward to trying it more in the real world.&nbsp; Give it a whirl and let us know how it works for you.</p>

Pony99CA
12-11-2008, 03:57 AM
Good find.

They also have an E-mail/MMS address ([email protected]) for non-iPhone users (or iPhone users who don't get the app). I took a picture of the book "Don't Make Me Think" on my Motorola Q9m (1.3 megapixel) and E-mailed it to them and they correctly identified it, so I think this is pretty cool.

Steve

Vincent Ferrari
12-11-2008, 04:40 AM
Good find.

They also have an E-mail/MMS address ([email protected]) for non-iPhone users (or iPhone users who don't get the app). I took a picture of the book "Don't Make Me Think" on my Motorola Q9m (1.3 megapixel) and E-mailed it to them and they correctly identified it, so I think this is pretty cool.

Steve

Cool part is it isn't done by a human... They have some kind of front page / cover / label recognition software that does the work. Really amazing stuff and I can't wait to take it out for a spin more often.

Pony99CA
12-12-2008, 01:23 AM
Cool part is it isn't done by a human... They have some kind of front page / cover / label recognition software that does the work.
I wonder where they got that database (Amazon scraping? :)). As you mentioned, I'd think a real bar code reader would be better, but maybe the camera resolutions have to get better.

I'll even take a Web site where you can enter the barcode and get price comparisons and reviews, like mogoso.com (http://mogoso.com), but with results presented more like Froogle or Price Grabber.

Steve