Pinterest's new feature sounds like the 'Shazam for food' pitch from 'Silicon Valley'

Pinterest announced new features Tuesday, including a product search based on images taken by the user. The new improvements to Lens is meant to allow users to search for recipes based on a photo of a whole dish, rather than just individual food items. less Pinterest announced new features Tuesday, including a product search based on images taken by the user. The new improvements to Lens is meant to allow users to search for recipes based on a photo of a whole ... more Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle 2017 Buy photo Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle 2017 Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close Pinterest's new feature sounds like the 'Shazam for food' pitch from 'Silicon Valley' 1 / 7 Back to Gallery

Pinterest's newly announced feature sounded pretty familiar for anyone who has been keeping up with season 4 of HBO's "Silicon Valley": The popular app launched a food recognition camera feature Tuesday that matches a user's image to recipes using that ingredient.

Users can take a photo of an entire dish at a restaurant or an item using the Pinterest app, for example, and the site will pull up recipes related to the food the camera recognized.

The Verge was among the first to notice the similarity to "Silicon Valley," pointing out that Pinterest's camera feature — called Lens — sounds very similar to SeeFood, the app pitched by Jian-Yang and Erlich Bachman as "Shazam for food."

The news site decided to ask Pinterest about the similarities between Lens and SeeFood, and reps told The Verge that similarities were "separate and completely coincidental" — of course.

Lens was first announced by Pinterest in February before its beta launch a month later, with the photo-recognition system being used to identify anything from food items to clothing, and then bringing up results based on the perceived item. Pinterest said that Lens can now recognize items in over 750 categories, and the improved system should recognize whole dishes.

Two other new features the company announced were increased filters for finding specific types of recipes and integrating recipe ratings into the app.

The real-life photo recognition developed by Pinterest is infinitely more useful than the Silicon Valley's resulting "Not Hotdog" app, which could only tell users whether the food item being photographed is (or is not) a hot dog.