Take Google… You search for a certain something and Goolge brings up hundreds of avenues virtually guaranteed to satisfy your need within the first 10 pages or so.

But try the same search in Google Images….

You end up with maybe 20 matches which aren’t just repeats of previous matches…

I’m under the impression that images are extremely compelling to human brains, more so than text or words. A picture speaks a thousand words and all that….

In this Information Age, why has the written word outclassed images in terms of its ability to draw an audience? Why is the stock-standard ‘vanilla’ Google word based rather than image based?

esselte said:

Take Google… You search for a certain something and Goolge brings up hundreds of avenues virtually guaranteed to satisfy your need within the first 10 pages or so.

But try the same search in Google Images….

You end up with maybe 20 matches which aren’t just repeats of previous matches…

I’m under the impression that images are extremely compelling to human brains, more so than text or words. A picture speaks a thousand words and all that….

In this Information Age, why has the written word outclassed images in terms of its ability to draw an audience? Why is the stock-standard ‘vanilla’ Google word based rather than image based?

Because a picture paints a thousand words. If you write n article about planes then you need to write what type, what engines, what company, ect all of which google can data mine. If you take a picture of a plane you only need caption it with ‘plane’ and all the other info is in the thousand word picture, but google can only data mine the word plane.

esselte said:

Take Google… You search for a certain something and Goolge brings up hundreds of avenues virtually guaranteed to satisfy your need within the first 10 pages or so.

But try the same search in Google Images….

You end up with maybe 20 matches which aren’t just repeats of previous matches…

I’m under the impression that images are extremely compelling to human brains, more so than text or words. A picture speaks a thousand words and all that….

In this Information Age, why has the written word outclassed images in terms of its ability to draw an audience? Why is the stock-standard ‘vanilla’ Google word based rather than image based?

It’s because no-one’s yet come up with software to describe a picture in words. All it can do is index the words used as picture caption or title.

You see, words aren’t actually all that efficient at conveying information.

Take a look at any photograph. Look for 5 seconds only, and try to take in as much information from that photograph as you can.

Now spend 5 seconds either writing or typing or vocalising or otherwise communicating as much of that information as you can.

You didn’t nearly cover all of it, did you?

Think of a photograph, and a written description of that photograph. Now think of the difficulty and tedium assimilating a comprehensive written description of a photograph as compared to viewing that photograph.

Also, images transcend ethnic, cultural and language barriers far better than English language websites,

The question is: why is our most valuable information technology based upon words and not images?

I don’t know; I look for images with Google and put inspecific search terms but often only one in five images relate to the subject I want to search for.

esselte said:

You see, words aren’t actually all that efficient at conveying information.

Take a look at any photograph. Look for 5 seconds only, and try to take in as much information from that photograph as you can.

Now spend 5 seconds either writing or typing or vocalising or otherwise communicating as much of that information as you can.

You didn’t nearly cover all of it, did you?

Think of a photograph, and a written description of that photograph. Now think of the difficulty and tedium assimilating a comprehensive written description of a photograph as compared to viewing that photograph.

Also, images transcend ethnic, cultural and language barriers far better than English language websites,

The question is: why is our most valuable information technology based upon words and not images?

Seems a false comparison. There are certain kinds of information that can be more quickly transferred by image, and certain kinds that can be more quickly transferred by word.

esselte said:

You see, words aren’t actually all that efficient at conveying information.

Take a look at any photograph. Look for 5 seconds only, and try to take in as much information from that photograph as you can.

Now spend 5 seconds either writing or typing or vocalising or otherwise communicating as much of that information as you can.

You didn’t nearly cover all of it, did you?

Think of a photograph, and a written description of that photograph. Now think of the difficulty and tedium assimilating a comprehensive written description of a photograph as compared to viewing that photograph.

Also, images transcend ethnic, cultural and language barriers far better than English language websites,

The question is: why is our most valuable information technology based upon words and not images?

On the other hand, I’ve just considered how I might convey the same information in my last post with a single image, and I can’t!

So maybe words contain more information than images… But then why does downloading images from the Internet kill so many precious precious bytes compared to downloading text only?

Google does use image analysis software, but it’s not practical to do in-depth analysis for the typical Google images search. But it can do simple things like dominant colour searches – it can show images that roughly match a given colour even if that colour name isn’t specified in any text associated with that image.

However,

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/how-googles-image-recognition-works.html

Just like Google Drive, Google+ Photos uses some amazing image recognition technology to make photos searchable, even if they don’t have captions or useful filenames. “This is powered by computer vision and machine learning technology, which uses the visual content of an image to generate searchable tags for photos combined with other sources like text tags and EXIF metadata to enable search across thousands of concepts like a flower, food, car, jet ski, or turtle,” explains Google.

dv said:

Seems a false comparison. There are certain kinds of information that can be more quickly transferred by image, and certain kinds that can be more quickly transferred by word.

OK… So information can be divided up in to groups of certain qualities?

More generally, though, why is information be divided up in to groups of certain qualities? Why can we not comprehend “raw” information?

OK… So information can be divided up in to groups of certain qualities?
—

Nah

If I google “busty babes” the results are image based

The main problem with an image based search engine is that most of us would be crap a drawing in the search box (Exceptions: Mr Car could paint something, DO would inset a good photo and PM2Ring would do a really nice ray drawing)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CBIR_engines

This is a list of publicly available Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) engines, these image search engines look at the content (pixels) of their images in order to return results that match a particular query.

Stealth said:

The main problem with an image based search engine is that most of us would be crap a drawing in the search box (Exceptions: Mr Car could paint something, DO would inset a good photo and PM2Ring would do a really nice ray drawing)

Whilst that complaint is true your exceptions are all based on the prior information you have that those people are all exceptional artists.

Siri can understand my crap Austro-Scotty-yankcanadian stupid accent no problem… Why is Siri not based on interpreting our crude sketches?

esselte said:

Stealth said:

The main problem with an image based search engine is that most of us would be crap a drawing in the search box (Exceptions: Mr Car could paint something, DO would inset a good photo and PM2Ring would do a really nice ray drawing)

Whilst that complaint is true your exceptions are all based on the prior information you have that those people are all exceptional artists.

Siri can understand my crap Austro-Scotty-yankcanadian stupid accent no problem… Why is Siri not based on interpreting our crude sketches?

Because asking Siri to create an appointment for tomorrow at 9:00am is easier than trying to convey that wish through interpretive dance

esselte said:

Stealth said:

The main problem with an image based search engine is that most of us would be crap a drawing in the search box (Exceptions: Mr Car could paint something, DO would inset a good photo and PM2Ring would do a really nice ray drawing)

Whilst that complaint is true your exceptions are all based on the prior information you have that those people are all exceptional artists.

Siri can understand my crap Austro-Scotty-yankcanadian stupid accent no problem… Why is Siri not based on interpreting our crude sketches?

Because a picture is worth a thousand words, but the thousand words used will vary depending on who is describing it.

• Why is Siri not based on interpreting our crude sketches?

Because anything drawn into siri would become the property of apple for all perpetuity?

These “why” questions I’m asking…

I understand the practical aspects. But why are the practical aspects “The Practical Aspects”.

Seriously, what is there (beyond convention and apprehension) which dictates how information is conveyed most efficiently into our consciousness. For what reason does Siri listen to words rather than look at crude drawings. Why is the value and economy of information conveyance dependent on the type of information being conveyed?

esselte said:

These “why” questions I’m asking…

I understand the practical aspects. But why are the practical aspects “The Practical Aspects”.

Seriously, what is there (beyond convention and apprehension) which dictates how information is conveyed most efficiently into our consciousness. For what reason does Siri listen to words rather than look at crude drawings. Why is the value and economy of information conveyance dependent on the type of information being conveyed?

Why did you type this out instead of drawing a picture with a 2B?

You might find this interesting Wookie:

http://www.theage.com.au/comment/syria-obama-and-putin-as-far-apart-as-ever-20130829-2ste7.html

Angus Prune said:

Why did you type this out instead of drawing a picture with a 2B?

Exactly.

Why did I?

Sorry.

Images have a very poor content to size ratio, and you can be sure that the information/message that you get from an image will be very different to what I get.

Therefore images are spectacularly bad at communicating concise, reproducible and reliable ideas

Dropbear said:

Therefore images are spectacularly bad at communicating concise, reproducible and reliable ideas

….I dunno, man. Maybe less efficient depending upon the quality (and in this thread I don’t mean quality as in any kind of value judgement… I just mean the “qualities” of whatever…), but not objectively less efficient.

Does anyone dispute the aphorism “a picture speaks a thousand words”?

esselte said:

Dropbear said:

Therefore images are spectacularly bad at communicating concise, reproducible and reliable ideas

….I dunno, man. Maybe less efficient depending upon the quality (and in this thread I don’t mean quality as in any kind of value judgement… I just mean the “qualities” of whatever…), but not objectively less efficient.

Does anyone dispute the aphorism “a picture speaks a thousand words”?

But as I posted earlier, that thousand words may bevery different person to person.

esselte said:

Dropbear said:

Therefore images are spectacularly bad at communicating concise, reproducible and reliable ideas

….I dunno, man. Maybe less efficient depending upon the quality (and in this thread I don’t mean quality as in any kind of value judgement… I just mean the “qualities” of whatever…), but not objectively less efficient.

Does anyone dispute the aphorism “a picture speaks a thousand words”?

It doesn’t speak the same words though :)

Another way to think about this…. We can read ad nauseoum about people dying in Syria with barely a burp, but when we see pictures of people dying horribly in Syria we (collectively) sit up and take notice and start some serious harumphing.

But it’s all just information. It’s a singular entity. Why is it so divided in its communication-utility.

Why are there different types of information. Why are the effective-efficiencies divided into information of different or differing types?

esselte said:

Another way to think about this…. We can read ad nauseoum about people dying in Syria with barely a burp, but when we see pictures of people dying horribly in Syria we (collectively) sit up and take notice and start some serious harumphing.

How do you know a)that the person is dying, b)they are from Syria c) that it was a horrible death( this last one is based on people being gassed, and a photo may look like the person is sleeping peacefully)?

As soon as you see “car forum” you can guess it’s not going to be a treatise on Descartes and the descent to existentialism

>You see, words aren’t actually all that efficient at conveying information.

Ah, so that’s why books are useless. Because they either don’t have pictures at all, or they have more words than pictures. If only human civilization had valued pictures more than words, we wouldn’t now be stuck in the prehistoric era.

Bubblecar said:

>You see, words aren’t actually all that efficient at conveying information.

Ah, so that’s why books are useless. Because they either don’t have pictures at all, or they have more words than pictures. If only human civilization had valued pictures more than words, we wouldn’t now be stuck in the prehistoric era.

Hey, sarcasm!

Sometimes, sarcasm is all that’s necessary.

Bubblecar said:

Sometimes, sarcasm is all that’s necessary.

And communicated efficiently in words too :)

Bubblecar said:

Sometimes, sarcasm is all that’s necessary.

And in this case?

esselte said:

Bubblecar said:

Sometimes, sarcasm is all that’s necessary.

And in this case?

This is one of those times. You’re over-generalising to an absurd extent. As has been pointed out, there are some contexts in which image searches can (sometimes counter-intuitively) prove more fruitful than text searches, and others in which an image search is laughably irrelevant.

Bubblecar said:

This is one of those times. You’re over-generalising to an absurd extent. As has been pointed out, there are some contexts in which image searches can (sometimes counter-intuitively) prove more fruitful than text searches, and others in which an image search is laughably irrelevant.

I know I’m over-generalising. I also know we all do. The question is why? What is it about us?

once computers or artificial intelligence can understand images, photos, paintings visual art etc, things will change very quickly

another 5 years or so +

CrazyNeutrino said:

once computers or artificial intelligence can understand images, photos, paintings visual art etc, things will change very quickly

another 5 years or so +

There are programs that can detect fleshtones used to detect workers watching porn at work.

The reason so few images are available per subject on shown on the Internet is simply because there are not enough images of many subjects. Of the things I often write about with accompanying photos, they can be the only images available. Even on reasonably common subjects, there is rarely more than a hundred or two images that can be shown.

As for the multiple pages that are claimed to relate to your search subject, only a few pages are usually relevant, the balance is made up of odd words used in your search and very few are pertinent to all the words used in your search. Of course if you want to check out what porn is available, I would guess they could run into many thousands of hits.

Most things cannot be expressed as images.

Users at pinterest are doing work organizing images

Pick a visual topic, search it

Now, if Google or some other search company were to take it over, and leave it mostly the same, but under the hood they could start developing and researching an image based search engine, that would be a good starting point, as users are doing most of the cataloging, search engines could start learning from that.

It should be about tags and titles, however people may not use a tag or title that describes the image. People such as myself actively block google searching.

I think the difference is in what the information does to us. Pictures tend to work on our emotional response, while words tend to work on logical interpretation.

There are reasons why we don’t show graphic images to everyone but can describe situations…

esselte said:

Take Google… You search for a certain something and Goolge brings up hundreds of avenues virtually guaranteed to satisfy your need within the first 10 pages or so.

But try the same search in Google Images….You end up with maybe 20 matches which aren’t just repeats of previous matches…

I strongly disagree on both counts. With Google search of text, if it isn’t on the first two pages it isn’t there at all. Last time I did a Google text search the first page consisted solely of the same text (which I didn’t want) on different websites, I never did find the page I was looking for. With Google image, I frequently have to scan through 200 images to find the one I want, and at least 150 of those 200 will be different.