Pinterest wants you to shop for an item by taking its picture

If you’ve ever spotted someone wearing a pair of cool boots and wanted to know where to get a pair just like those, you’d be interested in a new feature coming from Pinterest. At an event in San Francisco, the company has just given a sneak preview of a new camera search technology that can let you search for related products on Pinterest simply by snapping a picture of something in the real world. So I could just take a photo of those aforementioned boots, for example, and through a combination of computer vision and deep learning, the app will then bring up a list of results of boots that look similar.

As part of this new camera search technology, Pinterest is also rolling out a new visual search feature called automatic object detection. That means the app will now be able to search for selected items in a pinned photo. Say you find a photo of a living room on someone’s Pinterest board, for example. You can now tap a visual search icon on the top right corner of the Pin and it’ll highlight all the searchable items with dots — say, the couch, the lamp and the table. Tap an object, and just like that camera search tech earlier, it’ll bring up a list of items that look similar to it.

It’s all part of a new initiative by Pinterest to make shopping that much easier. Indeed, the firm says that over 55 percent of its users go to Pinterest to shop compared to other social networks. Last year, for example, it rolled out Buyable Pins so that you could shop for items right from Pinterest. While that feature was just for iOS (and then Android), now it’s open to the web too. Tim Kendall, the President of Pinterest, says that when Buyable Pins first launched, it only had 200 products for sale. Now, it has over 10 million items, and over 20,000 retailers selling stuff on Pinterest.

Another announcement is a “shopping bag” that sticks with you regardless of platform. So you can add items to your bag via the Pinterest app, for example, and then review the items on your laptop later on. And, thanks to new merchant profiles, you can also now browse similar items from the same seller. Pinterest is also introducing a new portal called the Pinterest Shop, where is an editorialized and curated part of the site.

Most of these features should be live as of today — the automatic object detection for visual search is iOS only for now — but that cool camera search tech won’t be out until later this year.

Source: Pinterest

Engadget giveaway: win a PowerCache 220 courtesy of Monoprice!

Whether you’re a glamping enthusiast or just a gadget-addicted park lover, you’ll need more than a simple battery pack to get through the day. It’s also the season for outdoor adventures, usually far from hardwired power sources, so Monoprice timed the release of its PowerCache 220 AC inverter well. This portable device, which launched today, can be juiced up from an outlet, a car lighter or the company’s soon-to-be-released 8- and 15-watt solar panels to provide enough juice for “a 30-watt fan for 10 hours or a 65-watt computer monitor for five hours.” It’s sealed lead-acid battery can be tapped through a multitude of ports, including four USBs, two 120-volt AC outlets, a cigarette lighter receptacle and two 5.5mm DC jacks for connecting Monoprice-branded LED lighting. This week, three lucky Engadget readers will get a PowerCache 220 for all their on-the-go energy needs. All you need to do is head to the Rafflecopter widget below for up to three chances at winning!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

• Entries are handled through the Rafflecopter widget above. Comments are no longer accepted as valid methods of entry. You may enter without any obligation to social media accounts, though we may offer them as opportunities for extra entries. Your email address is required so we can get in touch with you if you win, but it will not be given to third parties.
• Contest is open to all residents of the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), 18 or older! Sorry, we don’t make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so direct your anger at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad.
• Winners will be chosen randomly. Three (3) winners will each receive one (1) Monoprice PowerCache 220 portable AC inverter with solar charging capability ($180 value each).
• If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within three days of being contacted. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen. Make sure that the account you use to enter the contest includes your real name and a contact email. We do not track any of this information for marketing or third-party purposes.
• This unit is purely for promotional giveaway. Engadget and AOL are not held liable to honor warranties, exchanges or customer service.
• The full list of rules, in all its legalese glory, can be found here.
• Entries can be submitted until June 29th at 11:59PM ET. Good luck!

Wileyfox returns with three more affordable smartphones

Fledgling British smartphone brand Wileyfox debuted its first devices last autumn, and one of them ended up being seriously good value for money. Not to lose momentum following these initial launches, the company is back today with no less than three new handsets. At the most affordable end of the scale is the £90/€120 Spark, with the £115/€150 Spark + and £130/€170 Spark X making up the rest of this new family of devices.

As you might expect, the Spark doesn’t sport a killer spec sheet, but for under £100 you get a quad-core 1.3GHz Mediatek chip, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of expandable storage. These components sit behind a 5-inch, 720p LCD display, with 8-megapixel cameras on both sides of the dual-SIM device, powered by a 2,200mAh battery. Jump up to the pricier Spark + and you’re looking at the same processor married with double the RAM and storage (2GB and 16GB, respectively). Similarly, the display and battery capacity are identical, while the rear camera sensor gets a bump to 13 megapixels.

The daddy of the range is the £130 Spark X, which increases the screen size to 5.5 inches (still at 720p resolution) and the battery capacity to 3,000mAh, but is otherwise the same inside as the Spark +. Continuing Wileyfox’s existing software partnership, all the new smartphones run Cyanogen OS 13, based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

The cheapest Spark is available to pre-order from Wileyfox and other online retailers today, with deliveries expected from July 12th onwards. The Spark + and Spark X won’t be too far behind, though, launching towards the end of next month about a week apart.

Baubax puts wireless charging ports in your clothes

Life would be so much easier if we could keep our phones charged just by slipping them into our pockets or purses. Startup BauBax thought so too, and went about crafting a set of garments that offer wireless charging on the go. The project launched on Kickstarter today, and I had a chance to preview prototypes of the new line to see how well it looked, felt and worked.

The premise is simple. Slide a wireless battery pack (with the Qi standard) into a hidden inner pocket, and it will send power through embedded cables throughout the clothing to other charging points. The power pack BauBax makes has a 5,000mAh capacity, which the company says can fully recharge an iPhone, a smartwatch and four cycles of its headphones.

That’s different from SCOTTeVEST, which simply organizes your tech in your jacket and blocks RFID. BauBax’s line actually lets you juice up your gear. Apple owners will have to invest a bit more to get BauBax’s case that enables wireless wireless charging for the iPhone.

There’s a decent variety of garments in the new series. Available for men are a sweatshirt ($200), vest ($200), down jacket ($250), bomber jacket ($300), jeans ($150), slim-fit jeans ($150), chino pants ($150) and chino shorts ($120). Women’s sweatshirts, vests, down jackets and bombers are available at the same price as the men’s, but there currently aren’t any women’s bottoms on offer. BauBax said its research showed that women didn’t like putting their phones in bottom pockets.

What I liked about the BauBax coat and vest was how well-constructed they were. Soft interior lining made the clothes comfortable and the garments felt luxe to the touch. I was impressed that, even with the phones and battery packs in the pockets, the women’s vest I tried on didn’t show any unsightly bulges.

The prototype coats and vests I saw weren’t final; the company is still refining the battery pack and making the watch connector smaller. But what I saw worked. After popping on the wireless-enabling case, I slid an iPhone into the inside chest pocket. Within seconds, the phone’s charging screen popped up. An Apple Watch started recharging within seconds of sitting on the watch connector ($70 retail) attached to the end of the coat sleeve.

You can also get men’s and women’s wallets for $40 each, and a charging pad that you can place on any surface to wirelessly charge up to two devices at a go. Eventually, the company will also sell a smart hanger that charges your BauBax clothes as they hang in your closet.

BauBax also made wireless, cordless Bluetooth headphones ($250), similar to the Bragi Dash, that attach to the clothes’ collars for safekeeping and charging. You can also stow the headphones in the loops of the battery pack holder or wallets, so you won’t misplace the little buds.

While I love the idea behind the wireless charging clothes, I’m not sure how many people will need a charge so much that they have to have it on them. I can see the outerwear coming in handy for travel and roadtrips, but not for daily use. Making sure I wear the right pants to keep my phone charged is actually more troublesome than simply tossing a portable battery into my purse before a day out.

Those who travel a lot or need plenty of juice can start pre-ordering now to get an early-bird discount, but you’ll have to wait till June 2017 to finally get your new gear. BauBax’s previous project, a travel jacket packed full of pockets and cool functions, took six months to ship to customers and stores too. Who knows if the Qi standard will remain a popular option by then, but this series of charging clothes are definitely worth a look.