January 13, 2010

Google Goggles

Few years back, I was discussing with a computer science student about one of my fancy ideas now known as “visual search” which would just be the opposite of Google Image Search and would take images as input and give you the details about it. He quipped, “Google guys are working on it.” That was the day my respect for “Google” as an innovator, as a company…changed!

It is just a short span of time and google has come up with an application which does have my imagination and it is really amazing how google goes on envisaging such projects.

“Google Goggles” uses pictures to search the web, not any pictures but the ones clicked or rather seen through your phones that run Android 1.6+. Go to Android market from your phone and search for “Google Goggles”.

Google Goggles at present is capable of photo-based searching for DVDs, businesses, landmarks, books, logos, contact info, artwork, products, barcodes, and plain text.

When you capture an image, it breaks it down into object-based signatures. It then compares those signatures against every item it can find in its image database. Some results are returned before you even snap or click a photo; Goggles uses data from the phone’s GPS and compass to deliver live augmented-reality results as well. You just point your phone at any location — a business, for example — and the app places a button with the business name at the bottom of your screen. Tap the button, and Goggles loads info about the business from a Web search. No snapshot is needed. It has an option of saving the search results or the images you clicked on your phone if you prefer to or else delete them.

Visual search of Goggles application doesn’t give succinct results about food, cars, plants, or animals as it is in its primitive stages and so you can’t expect it to be as powerful as google search but still it has much to offer.

Goggles application retains your IP address and Google account details for five weeks in order to help “keep the service stable and secure.”

The Google Goggles app is now available as a free download in the Android Market.



If you have any computer related problem, you can ask it at our Question & Answer portal and our experts will answer your queries.

About

An Analyst in UBS Investment Bank. He is an IIT Kharagpur graduate in Mining Engineering. Ashish Gourav is an internetoholic, loves to gather knowledge and spends a helluva time on internet. It's highly probable that you would find him online now, so follow him on twitter @ashishiitkgp4...you can also read his personal blog : http://iitashish.blogspot.com/

Comments:
  1. As you told that breaks it object-based signatures, then it compare those signatures against every item then it can be in its database. Most of the results are returned before you even click a photo; from the phone’s GPS and compass to deliver live reality results as well

    Copyright © 2011 Comptalks - All Rights Reserved.