Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Continuous improvements with Google Goggles 1.7

With Google Goggles, you can quickly add someone to your contacts, learn about paintings, translate foreign text, and even solve Sudoku. Starting today, with Goggles 1.7 for Android, we’re making your visual search experience much faster and providing better results with new features like continuous mode, improved text recognition and contributed results.

Skip the shutter with continuous mode
Continuous mode is a quick and easy new way to use Goggles. You can now get results instantly without having to take a picture - no shutter press required! Goggles will scan the scene continuously so you don’t need to worry about taking multiple pictures. The new continuous mode works best with books, products, artwork, and landmarks. Snapshot mode is still available, and has some tricks that aren’t in continuous mode yet, including translating text and adding a contact. Also, images recognized in continuous mode sessions won’t show up in your Goggles Search History, so if you’d like to refer back to something, such as a painting in a gallery you should use snapshot mode.

Goggles also scans multiple items in continuous mode

Get richer results with text recognition
Starting today, when Goggles recognizes a portion of text, you’ll get results that have a close match to the text you’ve scanned. Let’s say you’re reading a magazine article you really like and want to share it with your friends. Just point Goggles at a part of the page, and instantly find a link to an online version to share immediately or read again later. You won’t even need the entire article in the frame. Goggles will also pull up more information from pages around the web where that text is mentioned, so its easier to learn about what you’re seeing.

Goggles finds web results to provide more information

More comprehensive results with your suggestions
Since Goggles 1.4, you’ve been able to suggest better results when Goggles doesn’t recognize what you’re searching for. To date, hundreds of thousands of submissions have been made to improve Goggles. Starting today, if you choose to suggest a better result or submit a new object altogether, your suggestion could become a result for the next user who searches for a similar object with Goggles. I’ve added a snapshot of the album cover from my old band so that my fans can use Goggles to find out about our music online. Now, if a fan searches for the cover of our album, they will see the information I suggested, along with my name and link to my Google profile.

Submitting the result for my band’s album cover

Google Goggles 1.7 is available for all Android devices, but you’ll need a device running Android 2.3 or newer to use Continuous Mode. Scan the QR code below to download, or visit Android Market. Tell us what you think on our Google + page.

Download the new Goggles in Android Market

Posted by David Petrou, Software Engineer

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11 comments:

  1. Bob FlaminioDecember 7, 2011 at 11:05 AM

    Can Goggles do this? I want to be able to take a picture of, for example, a party invitation and have Goggles parse out the date, time, location, and other information; and then add that event to my calendar.

    Thanks,
    Bob

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bob FlaminioDecember 7, 2011 at 11:06 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownDecember 7, 2011 at 12:00 PM

    Are there any plans to provide intent support to use Goggles from within your own app?

    ReplyDelete
  4. GhanwarDecember 7, 2011 at 3:43 PM

    nice

    ReplyDelete
  5. Garrett WilliamsDecember 7, 2011 at 4:46 PM

    Dang, I just bought an Android 2.2 phone. No continuous mode for me. Still, cool features. I hadn't heard of the translation feature yet. I wonder if that's on my iPhone 3GS. Either way, I look forward to getting my new Android phone in the mail.

    ReplyDelete
  6. anuDecember 7, 2011 at 7:17 PM

    I have Huawei s8650 (sonic). It doesn't support Google Goggles.. :( Is it because of the hardware requirements.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Mason SDecember 7, 2011 at 8:58 PM

    Goggles is a pretty unique app, and I enjoy using it on my Droid 3. Pretty fast too.

    ReplyDelete
  8. witDecember 7, 2011 at 9:00 PM

    Iphone Application Development - Waiting for much more improved version of Goggles

    ReplyDelete
  9. Reset RebootDecember 8, 2011 at 4:21 AM

    So, my Huawei Sonic U8650 sports Android 2.3.3 and has a camera and such. But the market says I can't install it. Why?

    ReplyDelete
  10. ARDecember 8, 2011 at 6:00 AM

    "Google Goggles 1.7 is available for all Android devices".

    Except for those that it's not available for, of course.

    ReplyDelete
  11. sophiaDecember 14, 2011 at 4:09 AM

    Yes iPhone Insurance and iPhone Apps says I also agree with you.Now these days Google done a tremendous work.Google improve there quality each and every second.

    ReplyDelete

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