Google are slamming out the treats in a veritably festive flurry at the moment with an exciting new application called Google Goggles being released for the Android mobile platform.
The app is designed to let you search Google using the camera on your Android phone.
Like a boy band on the X Factor, Google want to take things to another level, and they’re hoping that their Android mobile app will elevate search beyond typing and voice recognition.
It’s still a new technology, but you can see how it might develop: why bother fiddling about with your mobile’s itty-bitty keyboard or trying to get the voice recognition to work when you can just grab a picture and let Google identify what you’re looking at and serve up the relevant search results.
According to Google, Goggles does a pretty good job with objects like business cards, paintings, landmarks, places, wine, books, and logos, but it’s a bit rubbish when it comes to trickier things like food, animals, and plants.
Goggles is currently only available for Android users, but we expect to see versions on other platforms soon. Here’s how Google describe the service on their Goggles homepage.
Use pictures to search the web.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
No need to type your search anymore. Just take a picture.Find out what businesses are nearby.
Just point your phone at a store.This is just the beginning – it’s not quite perfect yet.
Works well for some things, but not for all.Your pictures, your control.
Turn on ‘visual search history’ to view or share your pictures at any time. Turn it off to discard them once the search is done.
This is mad! I wonder how long it will be before it can recognise faces? That might come in handy after a few ales!