Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Your smartphone camera is now smarter with Goggles 1.6

Today, we launched a new version of Google Goggles that enhances the camera on your Android-powered phone. With this new opt-in feature in Goggles, you can simply photograph an image using your phone’s camera, and Goggles will work in the background to analyze your image. If your photo contains items that Goggles can recognize, the app will notify you.

Let’s say that I’m going on vacation, and I decide to use my Android-powered phone as my primary camera. Goggles would identify landmarks, paintings and other interesting objects in my photos. I can share these facts about my vacation with my friends right from my Goggles search history.

(l-r) Goggles has found a search result for this popular landmark; Find out more about this item in your photo within Google Goggles

Photos you take with your phone’s camera will only be seen by Goggles if you enable the Search from Camera feature. Here’s how:
  • launch Google Goggles
  • tap Menu > Settings > Search from Camera
Manage your opt-in status from the settings menu

Google Goggles 1.6 is available for Android 2.1 and newer devices. Download by clicking here or by scanning the QR code below:


Posted by Pavel Vodenski, Software Engineer
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19 comments:

  1. Mr. Le PresidentSeptember 14, 2011 at 10:10 AM

    Are the photos uploaded to google servers?

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownSeptember 14, 2011 at 10:15 AM

    Is goggles finally "open" to be used by other apps via an intent?

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownSeptember 14, 2011 at 10:15 AM

    They have to be uploaded in order to be analysed; everything Google does is in the cloud because your phone's hardware couldn't possibly handle the processing and storage required, without being useless for everything else.

    This is why it's opt-in.

    ReplyDelete
  4. KASeptember 14, 2011 at 10:22 AM

    Thanks Google Goggles:)

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownSeptember 14, 2011 at 10:28 AM

    Great feature!
    Will the uploaded photo be full size or just a thumbnail?
    Could cause a lot of traffic...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Len .September 14, 2011 at 10:50 AM

    Just try it out, you can enable it to work only with WiFi.

    Also you are able to disable it when you are roaming.

    ReplyDelete
  7. ShaileshSeptember 14, 2011 at 10:51 AM

    You can configure how much cellular data this Goggles feature will use. See this article: http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=186334&topic=25275

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sergey H.September 14, 2011 at 10:58 AM

    Hi Pavel,

    This is a great product! - Kudos.

    Any plans rolling it out to other smartphone platforms? Would be happy to test it on RIM BlackBerry Bold 9700 OS6. Any plans with extension of your projects?

    Best,
    Sergey

    ReplyDelete
  9. UnknownSeptember 14, 2011 at 11:30 AM

    Would be great, if it reacted on QR Codes as well... Could replace a barcode scanner and would be very natural to use the camera instead of an extra app.
    However, would be good if camera reacts immediately if QR Code appears within picture.

    ReplyDelete
  10. MaffSeptember 14, 2011 at 12:38 PM

    Hope this works with my 3d photos then

    ReplyDelete
  11. AnonymousSeptember 14, 2011 at 5:45 PM

    I think anyone hesitate about privacy shall not be worried. No matter what Google says, someday the terms and condition will change to allow selling you the right ad.

    ReplyDelete
  12. GavinZacSeptember 14, 2011 at 10:43 PM

    Dirk, just tested it, after this update taking a picture with the normal camera of a QR code gives the 'QR code detected' message and actions for what to do with it (e.g. open a link).

    ReplyDelete
  13. roopaSeptember 14, 2011 at 11:54 PM

    I really satisfied with your web postings.It really has great volume of information on Google smart phone camera.So nice to see your blogs.Thanks for sharing.android developers

    ReplyDelete
  14. UnknownSeptember 15, 2011 at 12:39 AM

    @GavinZac ... thanks for testing. thats great!

    ReplyDelete
  15. UnknownSeptember 15, 2011 at 3:10 AM

    By the way, you can decode QR code from this article by using BarDeCo - the extension for Google Chrome: http://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fdbaidolhfnecgiloehbailojonjaloa

    ReplyDelete
  16. justcallmeedmSeptember 15, 2011 at 8:49 AM

    What happens if I take a private pic of my girlfriend and suddenly google goggles turns up new information on my girl? Is that pic stored on the server for all google employees to see?

    ReplyDelete
  17. UnknownSeptember 15, 2011 at 1:43 PM

    justcallmeedm:
    It doesn't work like that.

    Just because the picture is processed by Google doesn't mean it'll turn up in search results.
    Also, Goggles doesn't do facial recognition. Whilst it can match characteristics of a picture to give similar images(so if you take a picture of a person with brown hair, you might be shown other pictures of people with the same hair colour) it doesn't recognise the person or associate a name with said person.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Mike-old BorsettiSeptember 15, 2011 at 9:03 PM

    Love it, BUT could you also add a setting to allow uploads only when under external power (I presume pics get queued)? That's a lot of battery usage!

    ReplyDelete
  19. JonSeptember 24, 2011 at 2:09 AM

    Love the app but the search results return stores in the US. I'm from the UK is there a way to change this

    ReplyDelete

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