New Image Search Phone Service - Vodafone's Otello

Vodafone has demonstrated a new trial service called ”Otello”, which is basically a mobile search engine that uses images, rather than words at the CeBIT show in Germany. Vodafone’s reasoning is that it’s more convenient to take a picture than to enter search terms with a phone that lacks a normal keyboard. The picture can be anything from a historical building to a CD cover, according to Vodafone. Otello then returns information relevant to the picture to the mobile phone, just like a normal search engine. Users can easily send images via MMS from their mobiles and the search service will return the results.

Vodafone is running trials with a German newspaper that allows users to find out more about stories by photographing the images that appear in the article and MMSing the images. This gives the reader access to additional multimedia content, such as photos or videos that would not be possible to have in the newspaper itself.