Method and system for searching for information on a network in response to an image query sent by a user from a mobile communications device

1. A computer-implemented method for searching for information, comprising:

under control of one or more computer systems configured with executable instructions,

receiving a request to perform a search based at least in part on an image captured by a digital camera of a mobile device, the request including the image;

determining that at least one portion of the image includes text information;

analyzing the at least one portion of the image to recognize one or more words in the text information;

searching one or more databases to identify one or more products related to the one or more words, the one or more databases selected based at least in part by:

performing an N-gram match between the text information and field entries in the one or more databases; and

providing pricing information relating to at least a selected portion of the one or more products to the user in response to the request.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:

converting the at least one portion of the image to a binary form before analyzing the at least one portion to recognize one or more words.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein analyzing the at least one portion includes processing the at least one portion using at least one optical character recognition (OCR) process.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising processing the at least one portion of the image to improve a quality of the at least one portion.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4 , wherein the improving is performed using an adaptive image normalization algorithm.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more words correspond to at least one of (i) a name of a product, (ii) a brand name of the product, (iii) a model name of the product, (iv) a model number of the product, or (v) a product code of the product.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the image is at least one of (i) a store label, (ii) a product tag, or (iii) a price tag.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:

extracting geometry information for the at least one portion of the image; and

analyzing the at least one portion of the image based at least in part on the geometry information.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein searching the one or more databases further includes:

ranking the one or more products based at least in part upon weighted combinations of scores for each of the one or more products in the one or more databases.

10. A computing system for searching for information, comprising:

a processor; and

at least one memory device storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the system to:

receive a request to perform a search based at least in part on an image captured by a digital camera of a mobile device, the request including the image;

determine that at least one portion of the image includes text information;

analyze the at least one portion of the image to recognize one or more words in the text information;

search one or more databases to identify one or more products related to the one or more words, the one or more databases selected based at least in part by:

performing an N-gram match between the text information and field entries in the one or more databases; and

provide information relating to at least a selected portion of the one or more products to the user in response to the request.

11. The computing system of claim 10 , wherein the instructions when executed further cause the system to convert the at least one portion of the image to a binary form before analyzing the at least one portion to recognize one or more words.

12. The computing system of claim 10 , wherein analyzing the at least one portion includes processing the at least one portion using at least one optical character recognition (OCR) process.

13. The computing system of claim 10 , further comprising processing the at least one portion of the image to improve a quality of the at least one portion.

14. The computing system of claim 13 , wherein the improving is performed using an adaptive image normalization algorithm.

15. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions for searching information, the instructions executed by at least one processor to:

receive a request to perform a search based at least in part on an image captured by a digital camera of a mobile device, the request including the image;

determine that at least one portion of the image includes text information and extracting geometry information for the at least one portion;

analyze the at least one portion of the image based at least in part on the geometry information to recognize one or more words in the text information;

search one or more databases to identify one or more products related to the one or more words, the one or more databases selected based at least in part by:

performing an N-gram match between the text information and field entries in the one or more databases; and

provide information relating to at least a selected portion of the one or more products to the user in response to the request.

16. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15 , wherein the one or more words correspond to at least one of (i) a name of a product, (ii) a brand name of the product, (iii) a model name of the product, (iv) a model number of the product, or (v) a product code of the product.

17. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15 , wherein the information related to the at least selected portion comprises at least one of (i) price information of the product, (ii) location information of a store selling the product, or (iii) technical specification of the product.

18. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15 , wherein the one or more sequences of instructions further cause the at least one processor to:

extract geometry information for the at least one portion; and

analyze the at least one portion of the image based at least in part on the geometry information.

19. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 18 , wherein the geometry information includes information pertaining to boundary or periphery of the text and a location of the text in the image.

20. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15 , wherein the image is at least one of (i) a store label, (ii) a product tag, or (iii) a price tag.