Bandai Networks launches mobile phone picture music discovery service

Rating: Our Japanese translator says its called ER search or CD Jacket search!

By Bena Roberts

According to Wireless Watch Japan Bandai Networks has announced a new mobile phone service that allows cameraphone users to take a photo of a CD cover or poster and search for the information about that artist or band. Users can then click the link in the returned content to easily access a mobile site containing detailed product info. and (hopefully) purchase related products directly from their phone.

What we think?
This is a point and discovery music search service where users can take pictures of a CD cover and in return receive inside information, how to purchase info or other forms of content. Image recognition is lifting its head and becoming more scalable but it’s still early days.

This ER search only discovers works on static content and locates music and approximately 150,000 CD’s have been indexed. This is not a lot.

One way to overcome the problem with visual picture search and indexing would be to allow the consumer to add a note to the picture when capturing the shot. This would mean that even if the content was not available indexed content for the artist or additional info would be returned avoiding a poor result.

Related: http://www.gomonews.com/pushing_the_barrier/2007/08/chat-with-antho.html