Visual Image Search and
Physical Hyperlinks
anselm@hook.org
paigesaez@gmail.com

project #1:
qrcodelove.com
• Two years ago
Paige fell in love.
• With a barcode.
• QRCodes;
a low-fi version
of physical hyperlinks

Physical Hyperlinks
• Physical hyperlink is a neologism that refers
to extending the Internet to objects and
locations in the real world.
• Physical hyperlinking does this by attaching
urls to tangible objects or locations.

for example

• if you can decorate the world with an
encoded semiotics - what do you say?
• graffiti? criticism? warnings? advertise?
outboard memory palaces?

• The QRCode acts as a visual semiotic
language extending and connecting between
things and the internet
• What else can do that?

project #2: visual search

How does it work?
• same basic idea as the qrcode project
except only now there is no code
• We take a photograph of something and
find similar images using robot vision
techniques
• Like a barcode we get back context

Such as...
• Criticism and praise
• Author, description,
• History, Medium, era,
• Similar looking images
• Where to get more
• Your longitude,latitude

Locative uses
• bookmarking places
• knowing where your friends are or were
• knowing where you are
• a landscape like australian song lines

Entering mainstream
• Tonchidot
• Photosynth
• Tineye
• Spellbinder
• Snaptell

Implications?
• Images used to be mute; how does this
alter our relationship, interpretation and
construction of images?
• Will images supplant words as a way of
talking to computers? To each other?
• For example see

Legal freight trains
• If most peoples reality is mediated by a
consensual interpretation - one not
favorable to brands - how will brand
owners respond?

And who owns our
(augmented) reality?

Code is law
• Copyright owners may over-eagerly scour
the web looking for theft - reducing
everybody elses vocabulary.
• Having a power doesn’t mean we should
always use it.

finding a balance
• How do we avoid
being overzealous
one way or the
other?
• How can we protect
free speech?
• How do we protect
fair use?

Our thoughts
• Foster an open image commons
• Like Wikipedia
• Associates images with meta-data
• Protects common interest
• Prevents undue private control

Building it
• Add photographs
• Document them
• Creative Commons Licensing
• Let anybody (not just Google) handle
search requests

• Become conscious of your images

Thanks
• paigesaez@gmail.com
• anselm@hook.org
• http://makerlab.org
• http://twitter.com/anselm