Google Labs introduces similar-image search

Google Labs last week made search for similar images available for the public to try. Clicking the "Similar images" link under an image will produce a page of images similar in appearance or content.

Google's description offers few details: it states that "Similar Images allows you to search for images using pictures rather than words." This could mean that the query is an image but the retrieval is text based, or it could mean that both the query and the retrieval are image based. The results appear impressive but the set of images that have the "Similar Images" link is limited.