Android owners were treated by a new labs program from Google today called Google Goggles. The application is still in its early stages, but it offers a great deal of functionality now and can only get better as improvements are made. The software is available in the Android Market for devices running OS 1.6 or later so I was excited to try it out on my Droid.
Once the application is installed you will go through a brief tutorial that explains how to use Google Goggles.
This page gives an overview of what you should be able to search using Google Goggles.
This page explains that Google goggles probably won’t work with Animals, Furniture or Apparel items. The video links to a quick youtube intro from the developers, check the link at the end of the post if you do not want to view it on your phone.
On this page you can decide whether to Enable history or not, you have to choose an option to move continue. If you would like to learn more about what Google does with the pictures, click on the link or check it out here. I personally am not paranoid about Google doing anything with the information and feel that anything that can be used to improve the application is worthwhile so I have enabled the history.
After you click Get Started! the camera launches so that you can take a picture. One thing that I noticed is that the flash doesn’t activate, I am not sure if this is a bug or it is designed this way to eliminate glare, but some items seemed to be too dark or in shadows causing problems.
At first I tried taking pictures of some items in my room like an Xbox which didn’t seem to work, I assume that it is similar to apparel that cannot be recognized yet. Then I tried a game cover, after taking the picture on the left a blue bar scans the picture and produces the results on the right from the Web. You can see that it recognized Madden 10, but indicated that it was PS3. I felt that this was a close enough match and the websites listed would definitely provide relevant information.
Next, I tried a DVD cover and again found the results to be relevant. Although it was the Widescreen version and not HD, it recognized that it was Old School Unrated even though I shook my hand while taking the picture and it was blurry.
Obviously this is a small sample, but I am impressed by the results. Goggles can also use your location and camera to identify landmarks and business in your area which I was not able to test from my living room, but it looks impressive in the Google video. I would like to be able to scan objects, but it will only be a matter of time before new items will be available to be recognized. I will definitely keep this app on my Droid and look forward to what the future holds for new enhancements.
For more information check out the official Google goggles labs site.
