Microsoft gives Bing ‘visual’ image search engine

Bing has gained a new ability to search for images. The visual search allows users to search for images, and is powered by machine learning. It is therefore comparable to Lens from Google.

On its blog, Microsoft explains how the new visual search engine works. It is possible to look up things by using images as input. For example, Microsoft gives the example of a flower whose name the user wants to know. It is then possible to upload a photo, after which Bing tells you the name of the flower.

The visual search engine is available for the mobile version of Bing; there are applications for Android, iOS, Windows Phone and BlackBerry, among others. It is unknown when the functionality will come to the desktop.

According to Microsoft, the search engine is fed by large datasets of information about images, which allows the system to distinguish between different topics. It works similar to Lens, a visual search engine from Google.