Google Goggles - pioneering visual search on mobile phones

Industry: Weds 9th December 2009

Visual search will change the use of the Internet entirely. Google says: "no need to type your search any more. Just take a picture."

The future is near - at least to Android users. Google is testing visual search with the latest initiative Google Goggles.

Search results when submitting a picture of a book

Goggles will recognise the object in the picture and suggest relevant search results in ranking order. The application is, according to developers, only at the early stages. This means that it is currently working well for simple non-moving objects, such books, DVDs as well as landmarks and other physical locations.

PC World have tested the app and report how a picture of a book-cover returned results similar to the results you get when typing the title directly in Google - in addition it returned the full title of the book, links to compare prices and preview text.

The technology incorporate GPS and compass facilities, which improves result precision, and in some instances allow searches to be returned before pictures are submitted.

Goggles even make use of one of the more cutting edge mobile technologies, augmented reality - take a picture of a street map, for example, and it should show restaurants and other services nearby in augmented reality.

Google Goggles is free and available for Android 1.6 (and above) users.

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