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Google Visual Search Coming Soon to Android

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the my-donut-shop-returned-goatse dept.

Several sources have shared the news that "Google Goggles," publicly known as Google Visual Search, will be "coming soon" to an Android phone near you. Rather than typing in the search term, you will be able to just take a picture with your phone and search results will be returned. The new search was recently featured on CNBC's "Inside the Mind of Google." Unfortunately Goggles didn't pass muster with a recent focus group, so it could be a while before Google decides this is ready to hit the streets.

24 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Just one word for you, son--"porn" by gyrogeerloose · · Score: 4, Funny

    The possibilities here are so boundless that it simply boggles the mind.

    --
    This ain't rocket surgery.
    1. Re:Just one word for you, son--"porn" by Rockoon · · Score: 4, Funny

      ..and the chance of them getting working A.I. to handle the suggested visual recognition task reasonably well is so small that it also boggles the mind.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    2. Re:Just one word for you, son--"porn" by natehoy · · Score: 4, Funny

      Is that why I took a picture of the Washington Monument and got a wide range of results on specific "medications"?

      --
      "This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
    3. Re:Just one word for you, son--"porn" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The trouble is, you'd need a source image to start with!

    4. Re:Just one word for you, son--"porn" by gyrogeerloose · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Consult your doctor if you have an erection lasting more than 125 years..."

      --
      This ain't rocket surgery.
    5. Re:Just one word for you, son--"porn" by vodevil · · Score: 4, Funny

      The possibilities here are so boundless that it simply boggles the mind.

      I fear for some people's self esteem...they're going to take a picture of their own dick, and google will return the results... "Did you mean to search for penis?"

    6. Re:Just one word for you, son--"porn" by natehoy · · Score: 2, Funny

      ...or if they get an ad for a splinter removal kit.

      --
      "This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
    7. Re:Just one word for you, son--"porn" by Ephemeriis · · Score: 2, Insightful

      ..and the chance of them getting working A.I. to handle the suggested visual recognition task reasonably well is so small that it also boggles the mind.

      Since when do you need AI?

      There's already plenty of machine vision software out there... Hell, my crappy digital camera is able to recognize a face well enough to tell if somebody blinked. All it has to do is match the image you just took to another image in its database with some degree of accuracy.

      Then it can use the tags on the similar image to look things up... Or the words surrounding that similar image on the web...

      --
      "Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
  2. Great Idea, but... by Reason58 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Image searching combined with the fantastically bad cameras on all smart phones. Sounds like a good idea in theory, but not so great in practice. For now.

    1. Re:Great Idea, but... by SparkEE · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In the video, a user takes a picture of the sign at Santa Monica Pier and gets a search result. Seems like it would be practical and quicker to have location based information available. Right now I can open up Google maps, hit "My Location", Tap on the building for Santa Monica Pier, and I get it's address. They should just add an option there to do a search. No camera needed, which also means it will work at night.

    2. Re:Great Idea, but... by Sockatume · · Score: 3, Informative

      Google Similar Images is offered, and works quite well, for images of a poorer resolution than even the crappiest phone cams on sale today. Besides, Android handsets have your location and view direction already, which cuts the problem down enormously. I suspect they could do it without any image recognition at all and get remarkably good results.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    3. Re:Great Idea, but... by edumacator · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That's just eye candy. The real benefit of this is if you a barcode, or a bottle of laundry detergent or a distant landmark, like Stone Mountain in Georgia, and then get relevant information. I know what Stone Mountain is, but someone from out of town wouldn't, so they wouldn't have the name to search...and location based option, while useful, would give you WAY too many results.

      That said, it'll be nice on a few rare occasions, but generally it will be used just for fun. As long as it is free, that's fine with me.

      --
      An important change for education.
    4. Re:Great Idea, but... by clone53421 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Interesting. Similar Images doesn’t let you upload any old image, which is unfortunate, but it is a worthwhile tool to add to my online toolbelt.

      Tineye, on the other hand, lets you upload any picture (or give it a URL) and it attempts to find similar images using actual image recognition. It is supposed to work for cropped, rotated, composite, or re-coloured images. I find its results to be pretty impressive, sometimes. They do need to expand their image database, though.

      For instance.

      --
      Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
    5. Re:Great Idea, but... by FallinWithStyle · · Score: 2, Informative

      There are already several barcode scanners on the Android marketplace. There are also apps that let you scan the cover of DVD's or other small items to retrieve pricing and other information in a hurry -- these work pretty well. At the very least, it would be cool to have the ability to take a picture of some blob of text and receive an OCR conversion on the phone. Though the 3.2MP camera on my G1 may struggle a bit with shooting some text clearly, I would think more powerful cameras (like the 5MP one equipped with the Motorola Droid) wouldn't have much of a problem.

      --
      Does this smell like Chloroform to you?
  3. Perennial Beta by Fdisk81 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm sure they'll have plenty of time to work out the kinks during Beta.

  4. The goggles by Frohboy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Unfortunately Goggles didn't pass muster with a recent focus group, so it could be a while before Google decides this is ready to hit the streets.

    So, the Goggles... they do nothing?

  5. Re:Now they'll know what you've seen. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    One man's -1 Troll is another's +5 funny/insightful.

  6. Why don't they focus on things that matter? by bogaboga · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wonder why folks at Android (read Google) do not focus on web functionalities that matter in today's age.

    Heck, we need Flash and PDF capabilities by default. Yes...by default. I know there are apps for these but "default" is the key word here. Now what's wrong with that?

    Secondly how come Google's own Google Maps works better on the iPhone than Android phones? It should be the other way round...after all it's their product.

    Come on Google do something.

    1. Re:Why don't they focus on things that matter? by Enderandrew · · Score: 3, Interesting

      bogaboga was complaining Google wasn't doing anything about PDF as a web functionality.

      My point is that Google already takes care of PDF web functionality.

      And actually, if someone mails me a PDF, they're sending it to Gmail, and Gmail will render the PDF as HTML.

      --
      http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
    2. Re:Why don't they focus on things that matter? by Delwin · · Score: 2, Informative

      Quickoffice comes default on the Droid. It has no problem reading PDF's.

    3. Re:Why don't they focus on things that matter? by poetmatt · · Score: 2, Insightful

      cyanogenmod takes you about 5 minutes.

      install addon via code.google.com that lets you flash it.
      download update flash, backup existing memory.
      reboot into cyanogenmod.

      done, only further step is if you intend to format the memory card for ext3 so that you can store as many apps as you want. Also probably takes 10+minutes to download cyanogenmod. Yes, it is the solution and unlike apple, you're not going to be behind on updates or bricked due to flashing.

      The bigger pain is when you have a million apps, you have a million updates.

      Flash won't be gone immediately with HTML5, but it hopefully will be soon. Flash is horribly inefficient and runs like crap, and basically doesn't do plenty of things HTML5 does. So soon, flash will thankfully be gone.

  7. Re:On my next date... by ClosedSource · · Score: 4, Funny

    If she "whips something out" you'd better check for an Adam's apple.

  8. Re:AI needed? by amicusNYCL · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Do you suppose that there is a database containing the physical locations of all objects? How exactly would you use a GPS and orientation information to figure out which object a person is taking a picture of, a car for example?

    --
    "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
  9. Re:First step... by inviolet · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is the First step. Next as soon as we see an item, our brain will be bombarded with price list from different web stores and we will know where to buy it cheap. Think of a Java code, it will be in your brain along with some not so disruptive ads. Thanks it is Google who are working on it.

    Yep yep. There's a dark side, though. This will completely change the game regarding the (currently) presumed anonymity of photographs. Today it is impossible to take somebody's photo and then search for all matching photos on the internet, and so people do not much mind having their photos taken. Photo search will turn that on its head -- and the internet has a lonnnnnnng memory...

    (And then we'll have "automatic aging" algorithms that can find photos of them while they were back in college partying.)

    --
    FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE