Pinterest has expanded the use of its Lens tool, enabling users to shop online for items they've spied in the physical world around them. The tool works similar to other visual searching aids like Google's Lens, enabling users to take an image of an object, such as a particular pillow or jacket, and shop through a selection of search results containing the same or similar items.
There are a few websites that seem to be designed, whether by design or not, to get users hooked into them. Social networks are the prime example but so are the likes of Wikipedia and Pinterest. Given how much people spend on these sites, there always comes a time when some users will go there searching for something to ease their stress or anxiety. Rather than leave it to chance or some algorithm, Pinterest is now introducing a series of well-being activities to help relieve stress or even hopefully save lives.
Pinterest is no longer offering search results related to vaccinations in an effort to reduce the spread of misinformation. The issue revolves around anti-vaccination content, which accounts for the majority of vaccine-related content found on the sharing platform. The move follows a previous attempt by the company to remove the anti-vaxxer pins, which was unsuccessful.
A survey run each year called the Prophet Brand Relevance Index (BRI) shows the role company brands play in people's lives. This year is the fourth in which the Brand Relevance Index was run in the United States, and the analysts at Prophet have some interesting results to share. While we'd expect brands like Google and Samsung to be running up closer to the top of the study's resulting "relevant brands" list, it's Apple that takes the cake this year.
Way back in August 2016, Pinterest acquired bookmarking service Instapaper. Over the past couple of years, we haven't heard very much from Instapaper as its developers worked on improving the app and focused on various projects for Pinterest, but today brings some big news for the much-loved service. Instapaper's days as a subsidiary are over, at least for now, as it's becoming an independent company.
Pinterest has reinvented the QR code, in a manner of speaking, with the launch of its own Pincodes. These Pincodes are colorful, circular codes composed of differently sized and colored dots around the circumference of a circle. There's also a design inside of the Pincode, though it isn't clear whether the inner image is part of the code or is just to improve the looks.
Amazon has been actively pushing Alexa and its Echo platform to more devices, some of the more absurd than others. Like the new Echo Look, whose primary reason for existence is to take photos of you in your wardrobe and give fashion advice. Not considering privacy worries, the Echo Look is yet another device you have to buy and one that has to stay rooted in your home. Fortunately, Pinterest has just updated its still beta Lens feature to also help you find matching attires and inspire ideas for other styles. And you can take it along with you too!
Samsung has finally, fully, and officially unveiled the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+, and with them comes the first iteration of Bixby, Samsung's homegrown voice-controlled personal assistant. Naturally, Bixby is promised to be able to do more than your average voice-controlled personal assistant, but while we still have to wait for confirmation of its greatness, it will at least be able to do one thing others can't. It will be able to visually identify objects in the real world and then let you do all sorts of things with that information. Like searching for related things on Pinterest, thanks to Pinterest's own Lens visual discovery tool.
Pinterest was created as a place to collect and search for interesting things, usually images and pictures, on the Internet. But not every interesting thing has to or can be found online. Sometimes inspiration strikes us when we see an object in the real world. For those occasions, Pinterest has been developing its Lens visual discovery feature, which it is now making available to everyone in the US, though still in its beta form.
Pinterest has introduced a new ‘visual discovery’ tool that uses your phone’s camera and artificial intelligence to find pins related to whatever you’re interested in. Taking a photo of your kitchen, for example, will result in Pinterest quickly parsing the image to determine the various things in it, then presenting pins related to the particular elements and items it picks out of the photograph.
Have trouble remembering which recipes, projects, and other things you’ve already tried? Pinterest is here to help with its new ‘tried it’ feature, enabling users to mark pins they’ve completed as ‘tried’ for both your and other users' future info. Those who mark something as tried can leave feedback about their results, as well, helping others decide whether the project or recipe is worth their own time and effort.
Instapaper just announced that its Instapaper Premium service is now free for everybody, something we have to thank that somewhat recent Pinterest acquisition for. According to the company’s Brian Donohue, the company is able to make Premium open and free because the Pinterest acquisition has enabled the team to “focus on just delivering the best product to our users.”