Excellent iPhone wine app from Tesco – just in time for Christmas

Clever Imperial College spinout Cortexica Vision Systems has developed a computer vision platform modelled on the way the human visual cortex works. All very well but are they going to use it for something useful?

Cortexica, makers of the WineFinder iPhone App

Well, they launched their first application last week – an iPhone App for Tesco that recognises any wine in Tesco’s database just by taking a photo of it. How very neat. It then links to Tesco’s online store to buy the wine. It also includes a ‘discover’ feature to find a recommended wine based on price, country of origin, and what food you want it to go with.

‘All you need to do is take a picture of any wine bottle label from your iPhone and if it is one of the 1,000 that Tesco Wine by the Case stocks you’ll see all the tasting notes and information about that wine, including the guide price,’ said Laura Wade-Gery, Tesco.com CEO.

The App can suggest your ideal wine, depending on budget, menu or preferred country of origin – just tap the button or shake the phone and wait for your result, all to the glug glug sound of wine being gently poured from a bottle and the resulting pop of the cork.

The video of the app in action is quite good apart from the fact it uses Blossom Hill for the demonstration. I thought that was furniture polish. It would be good to see a WineLibrary version of this.

We think 2010 will see a raft of clever apps combining image recognition and processing technologies making our lives a little bit more fun and a little bit more funky.

Cheers and Happy Christmas.