Passage 2Like many other types of industry, clothing is no exception. Its typical fashion-consciouscustomer is a person who likes a shopping experience which combines everything that moderntechnology offers alongside having a day out shopping in stores. In other words, shoppers willselect a new look online as part of their in-store browsing. Rather than fight this development, thefashion business has recognized that fusing the two channels of shopping is key to attractingbusiness. Now, some clothing companies are making use of technologies with image-recognitionsoftware which allows customers to identify and match one image with another.Basically, shopping apps using image-recognition software will let customers take a pictureof an item of clothing on their phone. Then they link it to a retailer who might sell the item orsomething very similar. Once they find it, they can either order online or visit the shop. What hadinstantly attracted the users was the ease in which they could take a picture of a shoe or a piece ofclothing and source where they might find it. So, if they saw something in a photograph in amagazine or in the street, within seconds they could discover where to buy it. The software is ableto analyze features such as colors, patterns and shapes and try to match them to a database orinformation from retailers.However, shopping apps using image-recognition software are not 100% accurate and noapps can guarantee the customer a perfect match every time. At the moment, the image-recognitiontechnology can only cope with images of objects which are static. Not everyone is convinced thatapp developers will ever solve this problem though perhaps it isn’t as great a problem as manymight think. Users expect some ambiguity so if the photo users put in does not provide an accuratematch, maybe they will simply try again with a new image. So overall, there’s no doubt—despitethe challenges to the technology—that the popularity of searching for the latest trends and styles inthis way is set to grow. Certainly, in the world of women’s clothing, it’s already established and asfor the men—expect to see similar apps for men’s clothing appearing very soon. (END)
41. Which of the following best expresses the main objective of this article?
(A) It predicts how virtually everyone will shop for clothes in the future.
(B) It addresses the rise of image recognition software in the fashion industry.
(C) It compares the experiences of in-store and online clothing shopping.
(D) It discusses the advantages and disadvantages of shopping apps.