A new app can help diners identify cheese.
A new app can help identify cheese
Inspired by the popular music app Shazam, Cheezam can tell the difference between gouda and cheddar.
Users just have to take a photo of their mystery cheese before the app compares it against its database of 9,000 images of different varieties.
The app, which is currently only available in France, can tell the difference by looking at key features such as the size, shape and the way any spots are arranged in the cheese.
Isabelle Mashola, the CEO of Isahit - the company that annotated thousands of cheeses for the app - revealed how the identifying algorithm works.
She said: "Let's take a Fourme d'Ambert and a blue cheese.
"For the algorithm to be able to determine the photo, it must be given indications which are supplied in the form of annotations.
"On a blue cheese for example, we will notice that the spots are arranged in such a way.
"The algorithm will then make the effort to recognise this feature by comparing it to other pre-annotated images. And this is how we manage to refine the calculation to the right cheese."