News Google launches Goggles

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2009/12/08/google-launches-goggles/1

Google has announced its plans to more tightly integrated search with the real world with the launch of two projects: a QRCode-based system and 'Google Goggles.'

 

"Google Googles allows you to simply snap a picture of an item"

Nice proof reading...

 

cant find it here in the uk

 

Awesome application!

We will be able to forget about tourist guides and those funny radio devices you get in museums. Expanding on the idea, if the device can recognise famous places, surely it could be developed to recognise curbs, pavements, posts, roads, obstacles etc. Thereby the blind could use it with a spoken word system to navigate?

 

When Google (aka skynet) take control and enslave the human race you'll think back and say "Actually thinking about it Microsoft wasn't that evil after all, we miss you Bill"

 

Clever, but not something I'd see myself using.

 

I'm already thinking that about Apple. They're worse than MS ever were for locking you in.

 

If I held the Golden Gate Bridge book while naked, it would return links about elephants.

HA HA HA

 

lol?

 

does that mean that the first google machine will be arnold sch....*snip*....er?

im moving to antarctica for judgment day

 

Hopefully it will not have melted away by then.....

I think the idea is great especially when i cant remember what something is called. Now we just need cheap 3d image capture so image angles wont affect performance. Maybe they can incorporate something like Photosynth?

 

I have an Android 2.0 phone (the Droid), and as soon as I got this app I tested it on a bunch of things around my place. It worked very well; they warn you it won't perform well if you snap pictures of food, clothing, or furniture, but if you snap a picture with the label in focus (the camera takes a few moments before snapping the picture because it has an auto-focus feature that's worked very well for me so far.
The search accurately identified and displayed relevant content for a few of my textbooks, my flash drive, a bottle of NOS, a Sam Adams winter lager, Canon printer, and Staples brand staples, and other things I won't bother to list. The lighting wasn't ideal, and I left most of these objects in the position I found them.
It couldn't match a plain red plastic cup, or an HP ink cartridge (the camera wouldn't focus on the logo or numbers). Overall, I'd say it performed pretty well.