Streamoid builds on AI-aided image search
Using its computer vision technology and AI tuned by fashionistas and stylists Streamoid...
There is a multi-fold increase in e-commerce websites, globally. According to analysts, popular website creators worldwide develop a minimum of two e-commerce websites per month. It is but natural that companies and professionals are innovating in building highly user-friendly e-commerce websites, integrating features that enhance images-based search using Artificial Intelligence (AI). One such company is US and Bengaluru, Indiabased Streamoid Technologies Inc. It has created a technology to recognize an image and then search a large visual database to get related content online.
Streamoid Technologies is a visual-based search and discovery technology provider that came into existence with a mission to “Put Images to useful Actions”. Streamoid offers a set of vision-based tools that provide newer ways for people and businesses to find, explore, collect and share image-based content.
Founded by former Senior Director of Nvidia, Sridhar Manthani, Stanford Researcher Haricharan Lakshman and Rajesh Kumar, Streamoid is a company that seeks to find solutions for fashion retailers using its computer vision technology and AI tuned by fashionistas and stylists. Incorporated in March 2013 in Palo Alto, USA, with the Indian subsidiary, Streamoid Technologies is slowly attempting to revolutionize web search, where browsing and typing key words would seem like a thing of the past.
The piQ portfolio
“It was quite apparent that visual content is going to be pervasive across different apps and websites. With this proprietary research in hand, we set about thinking how information available in images can be used to improve the customer experience,” recounts Co-Founder Sridhar Manthani elaborating on how the seed of thought to set up the company was sowed. “We decided to focus on publishing and fashion e-commerce. We built the piQto image search engine that operates in publishing. The piQit Fashion platform is the evolution of this. We were on the cusp of the e-commerce revolution in India, and believed that fashion is visual, and we can use our technology to help online retailers and shoppers,” he said.
Initially, when the founders came together they developed their first product that targeted media houses with large databases. They developed an app called which allowed a user to click a picture of an item and the app would then fetch all the content in the media house’s data base related to the item. piQto was developed as an image recognition tool that converts the mobile camera into a visual search engine. It enables the app user to click on print ads/ images in partner publications and see related digital content like video’s, product catalog, picture gallery or take a quiz/poll or buy the product online. Explaining about their first product Manthani says, “piQto is our image search engine and is the initial proof of concept for our technology being used in our publishing product. It allows any image to be connected to additional related, whether existing on a website or appearing in offline medium like newspapers/magazines or billboards and find an immediate match extremely quickly and efficiently. This ultra-fast lightweight algorithm allows all publishers such as newspapers and offline or online magazines to monetize their images and bridge the gap between the offline world and the online world.”
PiQto for Publishers may be an off-beat, advanced, and innovative product for the publishing industry, but the founders realized that there were very few takers for their innovation. “The publishing industry definitely sees the value in the piQto image search engine but is a bit slow to adopt new technology to their existing business. Once —Sridhar Manthani, Haricharan Lakshman & Rajesh Kumar
PiQto for Publishers,