Art mosaic

As you probably know, Google, Yahoo, and Bing allow you to search on images as part of their basic search engine functionality.  (Alas, Knowledge Mosaic does not yet offer an image search–unless you count the paper filings we offer as scanned images!).   They’re all cool, but here’s one reason to prefer Google Images.   Google recently changed the layout of its results so that there is now very little white space between records, and multiple “pages” of results appear on a single screen as you scroll down.

So what?  Granted, this presentation format may have little practical advantage.  But aesthetically, it is stunning. The visual effect is especially striking if your images really matter as images.  For example, try an image search on your favorite painter: Van Gogh, Paul Klee, Joan Miro, Marc Chagall.   The results appear as a gorgeous mosaic, bursting with color and cascading down your screen. What unfolds before your eyes is not so much a hodgepodge of discrete results (as in Yahoo) but a cohesive, indeed harmonious, über-image.