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Google on Tuesday announced that its similar-images feature is now a standard part of the company's image search technology.

The feature was originally launched in late April, alongside the visual-news timeline, as a way for users to find images that share certain visual similarities with those in Google Images search results. This means that you could do a search for "ice cube" and very quickly fork out Google's results between images of the frozen chunks of water and the popular West Coast rapper, all without having to change your original search term.

Which 'ice cube' did you mean? Google's image search can now offer suggestions for images that may be similar.

(Credit: Screenshot by Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

Google continues to host a dedicated Similar Images search page that provides identical results to what's now found in the standard version of Google Images search. This is likely to remain, as has been the case for sites of other Google Labs graduates, such as Google Transit (now a part of Maps) and Google Suggest.

Google has also created a standalone Google Product Ideas page to grab user feedback for other features or changes to the image search service. This operates the same way as other product idea pages by letting users suggest new ideas to Google's engineers, as well as giving others the chance to vote ideas up or down.

Google image search is no longer restricted to iPhone and Android phones.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

Last March, Google's mobile team made it possible to search for images on your iPhone and Android phone. On Thursday, they rolled out image search for feature phones; that is, for pretty much any cell phone make and model with a Web browser.

Image search will work roughly the same way it does through a desktop browser. Starting from Google.com in the mobile browser, click "Images" in the top navigation, then fill in your search term. Google will return thumbnail images in the results page; between eight and fourteen, Google wrote in a blog post.

Click on one of these pictorial results to see a larger thumbnail image. Below, there's a link to view the photo in its original Web page and another one that takes you to the full-size image. You're also able to navigate "left" and "right" arrows to view other image results.

As with all Internet-dependent mobile apps, the slower your data or Wi-Fi connection is, the slower these images will be to load.

In an effort to keep people from incorrectly reusing or repurposing images found on its image search tool, Google has added new options that let users filter results by usage rights. Users can now filter photos by whether they're available for reuse, commercial reuse, reuse with modification, or commercial use with modification.

Google is including a variety of licensing methods including Creative Commons, GNU Free Documentation license, and items that are in the public domain. Its system for determining the rights on various shots is not foolproof though, and as such the company is recommending that those who are interested in republishing or reworking any of the images check with the content owner first (if possible).

Users can now choose one of four license filters for images on Google image search.

(Credit: CNET)

What's likely to be a long-term effect of supporting license filtering is that Google's image index becomes far larger than it is right now. Some content owners who have chosen to block its indexing to keep others from easily reusing their photos may think twice; with these new filters there's at least some semblance of care and control, even if Google is basing that off information from a photo's metadata.

It's also a signal that Google is paying more attention to the rights of user content, although the filtering is still something that's tucked away in the advanced settings of the search tool, and not something users have to check off before even beginning a new search.

Google has not yet rolled out license filtering to any of its other properties. Sites like Google Books and Video could be next. In the meantime, there are several search tools that let users quickly seek out images that can be reused and remixed including the Creative Commons search engine, Flickr, Blip.tv, ArtistServer, The Internet Archive, Wikihow, and Wikipedia.

Google Image Search can now tell the difference between a picture that has a face in it and one that doesn't. But don't get too excited. it can't tell one face from another.

Step one: Do an image search

Technically, what Google can now do is similar to what some digital cameras do: Recognize faceness. Cameras do it to lock in focus; Google does it to separate pictures into "people" and "not people" buckets.

This feature is not in general release yet, but you can play with it. Here's how: Do an image search. For example, try a search on "CNET." You'll see a lot of pictures of products, buildings, and screenshots. Now go into the address bar and stick this on the end of the URL: &imgtype=face. Go to that URL and you'll see just CNET image search results of people.

You can also search for news results: Append &imgtype=news.

This isn't an official Google search feature yet, which is why you need to hack the URL to see it. Regarding the future for the capability, Google P.R. people only have this to say: "We're always working to improve the search user experience. In the near future, we will be launching a new search feature that will enable users to refine their searches for images pertaining to faces and news articles."

Step two: append the search URL with "&imgtype=face"

Result: Only pictures of people.

Historical note: A Web 2.0 startup, Riya, was pitching its facial recognition engine last year. It never worked well enough, and the company withdrew a lot from that product, launching instead a shopping search site, Like.com (preview) where you can select goods that look similar to the things you like.

Found on Google BlogScoped via Ars Technica.