goggles

Today, Google Goggles for Android jumped up to version 1.6, and gained a super neat feature that enhances your Android camera's powers. The new opt-in Search from Camera feature lets Goggles automatically perform an image-based search in the background, whenever you snap a photo.

Here's how it works. After you've updated your Google Goggles app, launch it, tap Menu, then Settings. Then go ahead and enable Search from Camera.

From there, any time you use your Android camera to snap a photo, Goggles will parse it for identifiable landmarks, paintings, or other interesting objects, and notify … Read more

Here's one that's sure to make art lovers go googly-eyed. Google has teamed with the Getty museum in Los Angeles to bring its Google Goggles visual search feature to museum-goers.

This means Getty-goers with the Google Goggles app on their Android or iOS device can just point their gadget at any painting in the Getty museum's permanent collection to snap a picture and instantly access mobile-optimized versions of the work from around the Web.

They'll also be able to get audio commentary from curators and conservators and biographical information about the artist, and locate other works by the creator at the Getty. We're betting Google Goggles for Getty (try saying that 10 times fast) will also make a great tool for those who get museum overload and want to further reflect on the "Adoration of the Magi" once they've escaped the crowds.

Google first launched its search-by-site tool for Android phones in late 2009 and made it available for the iPhone about a year later. It can recognize books, album covers, artwork, landmarks, product logos, and more, and can also instantly translate text that has been captured by your phone's camera. Google refers to its Goggles search method as "computer vision."

The Getty says it's the first museum to work with Google to make its entire collection of paintings available virtually via Google Goggles. We'd love to see Goggles pop up at more museums, as long as people remember to turn their flashes off and look up while they're Google Goggling. … Read more

Google Goggles for Android jumped to version 1.4 today, and introduced a few significant features that should improve your overall visual search experience.

Search history now enables you to add personal notes to Goggles results, which is a helpful tool for keeping your search history organized, especially if you're conducting any kind of photo-based research. And when you find something interesting, you can easily share it (with or without notes) via the built-in Share function.

Also, in an attempt to make Google Goggles results more consistently useful, the app is now open to suggestions. By cropping and tagging … Read more

Update at 12:30 p.m. PT: Google claims CNN's story to be speculative. A company representative said "we are in fact not working on developing an app with these capabilities."

Update at 4:30 p.m. PT: CNN is now countering Google's claims, saying it stands by the original piece. An updated version of our story follows.

Google says it's not working on an application that would allow users to identify others by snapping a picture of their face with a cell phone camera, despite a high-profile report that one is on the way.

A report posted by CNN earlier today claimed the company is at work on such an application, but faces privacy hurdles in readying it for market. The story contained an interview with Google's engineering director for image recognition development, Harmut Neven.

In a statement earlier this afternoon a representative for Google said, "we are in fact not working on developing an app with these capabilities," and referred to the piece as speculative. Now CNN is fighting Google on the issue, claiming that the company's claims "do not fit the facts of the situation."

"This interview was prearranged--on the record--and staffed by a Google PR rep, who raised no objections at the time and did not deny what the engineer said," a CNN representative told CNET. "Additionally, we have an audio recording of the interview, as does Google. We stand firmly behind Mark's reporting."

A Google representative declined to comment on CNN's statement.

Privacy remains a touchy subject for Google. Earlier this week Google entered a settlement agreement with the Federal Trade Commission over last year's launch of its Buzz service, which has led to the company agreeing to establish a "comprehensive privacy program." In terms of imaging, Google had also gotten in hot water with privacy groups when it rolled out its Street View technology, which provided raw photos with faces and license plates, two details that were later removed.… Read more

Samsung may be holding a digital hostage; Android gains ground on Apple, but may soon lose it to the Verizon iPhone; and the announcement of the next iteration of Android raises questions about version numbers. Join Antuan Goodwin and Justin Eckhouse for all that and more in the world of Android.

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Analysts: … Read more

I've never been completely sold on the accuracy or practicality of Google Goggles, but an update to the Goggles for Android app makes this experiment in photo searching more useful day-to-day.

The new Google Goggles for Android 1.3 adds three significant features--faster Google's bar code and QR scanner, the ability to recognize print ads like in newspaper and magazines, and (for a curve ball) Sudoku.

Google's bar code reader was an early addition, and in fact, Google's teams introduced the first bar code scanning app when the Android platform was just stirring--we saw it even … Read more

As a longtime user of both the iPhone and Android, I was pleased to see Google's Goggles service make its way to iOS devices this past week. Even though it's missing a feature or two compared to its Android sibling, both versions are able to figure out what you've just taken a picture of, and give it back to you as a Google search.

It's one of those simple applications that I keep coming back to, mainly for its speed and accuracy, which can be scarily good. Though, when Google released it on the iPhone, it … Read more

Voice search is improving all the time, and Google brings the best we've seen to date. Its stellar iPhone app uses the accelerometer to activate search. When you hear a beep after lifting the phone to your ear, start speaking your search term. The accuracy of the listening software combined with the MyLocation feature brings (mostly) spot-on search results that are localized to your whereabouts. As with versions of the Google Mobile App on other mobile platforms, this one also includes a tab of shortcuts to other Google services, including Talk, Reader, News, and Photos (Picasa Web).

While the … Read more

It's been almost a year since Google released a beta of its Goggles visual search app for Android phones, and now it's time for a new milestone in the product's life cycle: Google Goggles for iPhone. Google Goggles (spell that 10 times fast) creates a visual search out of what the smartphone's camera sees through its lens. In other words, the app will scan your image when you focus on a landmark, a sign, a label, and so on, and search for matches in its database. Google refers to the Goggles search method as "computer … Read more