The idea is to have a huge database of images of natural things that tend not to move about too much and use an algorithm to match portions of these images to images of anything else.
So, you can take a picture of you and your mother and upon searching find that the dominating lines in the picture match a particular rock face or waterfall scene (notice the entire scene has to be used and not simply a portion of the everchanging waterfall) and you are given the information of where to go to find it for real if you so choose.
I am confident this is possible with highly sophisticated tools that may or may not exist yet.-- daseva, Feb 03 2011 ET, In someone else's vacation pictures ET_2c_20In_20someon...vacation_20pictures [theircompetitor, Feb 08 2011] scroll down to see this *natural thing* that looks like a face http://www.dailymai...ain-seen-above.html [xandram, Feb 08 2011] Not what you mean but, yikes. http://www.woosk.co...08/09/pebbelart.jpg [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Feb 08 2011] But how do I break the news to my mother that she looks like a rock face?-- pocmloc, Feb 03 2011 Try telling the rock?-- RayfordSteele, Feb 04 2011 Ok, so I definitely changed the title to something more in tune with the comments.-- daseva, Feb 08 2011 Pity for those being sent to Easter Island.-- AfroAssault, Feb 08 2011 <waves to AA>-- po, Feb 08 2011 My Mom's got a hairdo that makes her looks like Thomas Jefferson, and she's got a rockface right next to Auntie Teddy Roosevelt (need some work on that top lip, Auntie)-- coprocephalous, Feb 08 2011 Now you must know that's MY face on Mars!! [+]-- xandram, Feb 08 2011 Yes but look at Scotland & Northern Ireland on that Mail link!-- pocmloc, Feb 08 2011 I've hesitated telling my wife that her hair-curling habits make her head look the shape of a Mario Brothers Goomba-guy, but frankly, it does.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 08 2011 [2 fries], excellent link! It's not a matter of mere coincidence that my mother, an artist, has recently begun doing a series of oil-on-canvas that blend human forms into otherwise landscape paintings. That, and a suspicious ability for people to see faces in natural textures, led to this admittedly simple idea (It seems that searching for unrelated stuff in stuff isn't all that unique).
[Rayford], she doesn't read the halfbakery, I hope?-- daseva, Feb 08 2011 Only every once in awhile, when she's not walking back and forth on brick platforms in the sky...-- RayfordSteele, Feb 09 2011 random, halfbakery