Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Swiss Price Comparison Site for Mobiles

Swiss Price Comparison Site for Mobiles

Leading Swiss price engine comparis.ch launches mobile image search
for price comparison of books, music, movies and games.



No longer do you need to type the name of a sought-after product into a search field. For the first time, it is possible to compare the price of an item using a photo. Imagine standing in front of a discounted DVD rack and wondering if the “super-slashed sale price” really is a true bargain. Anyone looking to compare prices has had to either pound the pavement or shop around online. Spontaneous comparisons were not feasible. However, times have changed: one of the leading Swiss websites, price comparison engine comparis.ch, now enables iPhone and Android users to compare prices by taking a picture of the requested item. kooaba's image recognition technology recognizes the product and triggers the comparison at comparis.ch.
The service offered by comparis.ch applies to iPhone and other mobile phones using Google’s operating system Android. This service supports price comparisons of CDs, DVDs, Blu-Rays and as of July books and video games.

At present the software recognizes over 2 million articles, by the end of July it will increase to over 7 million. "Price comparison has never been easier, thanks to the interaction of various innovative technologies. Comparing prices pays off, as the savings can be substantial," explains Mr. Ralph Weber, Product Manager of price engine comparis.ch.

Comparis.ch developed a similar application for the Android operating system. Therefore, Android-phone owners can also benefit from this cutting edge technology for price comparisons of books, CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray and games. In addition to the image search, the application for the Android-phone includes a barcode scanner. This extends the search for price comparisons to EAN-barcodes as well.

Swiss Know-how Comparis.ch bases its image search on technology developed by the Swiss company kooaba.

kooaba is a spin-off of ETH Zürich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich). The company specializes in image recognition. "We are especially pleased to put into effect the new image search function provided by our Swiss partner kooaba," commented Weber on the collaboration.

Free-Download
The comparis.ch price comparison application for books, music, movies and video games can be downloaded for free in Apple’s App Store (http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=299589959&mt=8)
and on the Android market.

Comparis: http://www.comparis.ch/
kooaba: http://www.kooaba.com/