• November 10, 2008

Hitachi unveiled Friday a ranking feature for its "search by drawings" search engine, GazoPa.

The engine identifies parts of images in user-uploaded content and uses them as search keys to locate similar images in thumbnails, pictures, photos and videos across the Web.

Registered beta-site users who upload drawings can receive responses and ratings from other users on the site based on the quality of search results. The move demonstrates a step toward providing social and interactive functions in Tokyo-based GazoPa. The company said it plans to release other similar search features that rely on image recognition, rather than keywords--making it easier to locate difficult-to-find images across the Web.--Laurie Sullivan