Vodafone showed off its new Otello image search technology at CeBit and experienced one of those embarrassing moments that you hope never happens to you.

Otello uses pictures instead of keywords for its searches, something that's supposed to make searches on touchscreen phones easier, according to an article in PC Pro. The idea is for users to take a picture anything "from a historical building to a CD cover," send it via MMS to an Otello short code and the Otello technology will return relevant information, similar to how traditional search engines return results from keywords.

Unfortunately for Vodafone, when German Chancellor Angela Merkel was testing the service at CeBit on Tuesday, the software was unable to identify her, Reuters reports. "I am not in the database…That's a major gap - please update," Reuters quotes the Chancellor as saying.

Here's hoping Vodafone fixes that before its official trial of Otello, with German tabloid Bild, begins next Monday.