Google Goggles

It can sometimes feel like Google launches a new product every afternoon. Some of these are prolific. Google Maps have largely become the de facto source for navigation in modern life, and their suite of cloud-based services have provided a smarter way to manage your work and personal lives. But just as often are the failures. Despite multiple efforts, for instance, Google's attempt at dominating the social media landscape has never really found solid footing. Fortunately, Google Goggles is well within Google's wheelhouse, drawing from their claim to fame and integrating incredibly well with their existing ecosystem. Google Goggles uses image recognition software to provide you with information on a wide variety of different objects you capture with your phone's camera. Or to put it differently, it's the Google search engine that most people use in their daily lives, but it allows you to search by taking a picture rather than typing in text. The possibilities here are incredibly expansive. Scan Google Goggles over a painting or monument to get an automatic history lesson. Rove the Goggles over a foreign menu for an instant translation. Solve Sodoku puzzles automatically, or add new contacts to your hone with little more than a quick scan. There are countless possibilities that Google Goggles could conceivably accomplish, but therein lies one of the risks. Like many of Google's products, there seems to be confusion about what exactly Google Goggles wants to be. While the idea of a pair of Goggles that will automatically answer your questions about two dimensional objects is sound, there's the question of how commonly it will need to be used. Much of the core functionality can be accomplished just as easily with the traditional Google engine, and that becomes even more convenient once you start factoring in the voice recognition software available through Google Now. Google has suggested they have ambitions for Goggles to serve as a platform rather than a simple standalone product, and to support this notion, they've started stacking on new features. Take "Virtual Graffiti" for example: a feature that allows users to draw on their phone and have it appear as an augmented reality overlay that any other users can see. It's an interesting thought in theory, but it hasn't seemed to have really captured the imagination of the public. The technology behind Google Goggles is impressive. Practically any two dimensional object can be scanned and searched, and the translation opportunities are incredibly useful. The real question is how often you'll find the need to use it. Because while the technology is impressive, it's also limited, and it often demands that users put more effort into a task that can be accomplished more easily with a simple text or voice query. Google seems to understand this, as they've already released a successor to Goggles in the form of Google Lens.