Google Goggles brings visual search to Android; Favorite Places brings QR codes to restaurant reviews

Looks like Google's been busy on the camera tip lately -- not only is it launching a new QR code-based Favorite Places mobile search product today, it's also demoing Google Goggles, a visual search app that generates local results from analyzing mobile phone images. Favorite Places isn't super-complicated, but it sounds like it'll be pretty useful: Google's sent QR code window decals to the 100,000 most researched local businesses on Google and Google Maps, and scanning the code with your phone will bring up reviews, coupons, and offer the ability to star the location for later. (It's not implemented yet, but you'll be able to leave your own reviews in the future.) Google hasn't built this into the Google Mobile app yet, so you'll need something to read QR codes with -- Android devices can use the free Barcode Scanner, and Google and QuickMark are offering 40,000 free downloads of QuickMark for the iPhone today. We just tried it out using QuickMark and it works pretty well -- although we'll wait to see how many QR codes we see in the wild before we call this one totally useful.

Google Goggles is a little more interesting from a technology standpoint: it's an Android app that takes photos, tries to recognize what in them, and then generates search results about them. Goggles can recognize landmarks, books, contact info, artwork, places, wine, and logos at the moment, and Google says it's working on adding other types of objects, like plants. Pretty neat stuff -- but how about linking these two services together at some point, guys? Check some videos after the break.

[John Stathakis Posted Dec 7th 2009 5:32PM]

I don't think it gets any cooler than this.

[Are these my pants Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:14PM]

How about Google Beer Goggles? If you are drunk at a bar you can take a picture of a girl and it will tell you if she is actually hot or not.

[ExoCreme Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:33PM]

@John Stathakis

God bless Google.

[Craptorium Posted Dec 7th 2009 10:16PM]

@Are these my pants

Do I ever need that. Oh my god.

[Region2 Posted Dec 7th 2009 10:45PM]

@Are these my pants

If you create that app for a bunch of phones, it'll sell millions. You have just hit upon a gold mine, dear sir, a gold mine.

[pk Posted Dec 8th 2009 8:39PM]

@Are these my pants

LOL. Awesome idea.

[jennylokis Posted Feb 21st 2010 11:48AM]

@John Stathakis Translation would be nice, I guess, but I would much MUCH prefer Goggles to be a RELIABLE means of capturing contact information from the printed page into my Google Contacts. For that, it’s pretty hit and miss, often failing to complete the OCR sweep before deciding to find something irrelevant that resembles what is obviously just a street address and phone number

The expedition: http://bit.ly/google-goggles-expedition

[Oflife Posted Dec 7th 2009 5:36PM]

Find 'Waldo', anyone? Spooky.

[viper24 Posted Dec 8th 2009 1:26AM]

@Oflife

Pikachu!

[aleshamay Posted Dec 14th 2009 5:31AM]

@viper24

Gesundheit!

[kish Posted Dec 7th 2009 5:39PM]

Symbian is the best still :-)

[N900 Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:28PM]

Stop that. EVERY OS is the best. Quit your fanboyism

[HotDog Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:30PM]

Long live Symbian!

[dcplaya Posted Dec 7th 2009 5:40PM]

This is great, already am playing with it and its awesome!

[agentlotek Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:51PM]

@dcplaya That's what she said...

[B3astofthe3ast Posted Dec 7th 2009 5:40PM]

Im going to try this on campus with my G1, right now.

[DeFlanko Posted Dec 7th 2009 5:43PM]

They need to make this for the iPhone.

[DroidRocks Posted Dec 7th 2009 5:46PM]

@DeFlanko

No they don't

[PATRICKmcnicholl Posted Dec 7th 2009 5:53PM]

@DeFlanko I couldn't agree more. @DroidRocks Please desist from your trolling. Here, take a dime and go do something useful

[Junzhi Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:32PM]

@DeFlanko

While I agree that DroidRocks posted a rather idiotic comment, I have my doubts as to whether Google will bring this to the iPhone.

I can certainly see why they would, given that the iPhone is a great phone and thus has a huge market. However, I also can see why they wouldn't: they may want to make more services for Android so that it will be a more desirable option than said iPhone and of course, other smartphone platforms.

On second thought, my guess would be that they might actually bring it to the iPhone, although probably later on. But really, who knows..

[djphatjive Posted Dec 7th 2009 7:44PM]

@DeFlanko

You realize in the video the phone they are using is an iPhone right? So I am quite sure it is coming out for the iPhone!

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 7th 2009 8:44PM]

@djphatjive You realize they're talking about Google Goggles?

[Mateo Posted Dec 8th 2009 3:43AM]

@DeFlanko. Free App for Android and Paid App for Iphones would be great. Thanks for financing our entertainment iphone users...

[NinjaMonkey Posted Dec 7th 2009 5:44PM]

I can see all the horny little boys trying this with "lanscapes"

[Otakuon Posted Dec 7th 2009 5:48PM]

Wow...pretty slick. Really making it hard for me to stick with my iPhone here. Tech-head loyalty is flimsy at best...

[jygsaw Posted Dec 7th 2009 5:49PM]

My phone! The goggles do something!

[PATRICKmcnicholl Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:02PM]

Lmao! nice shout out to Rainier Wolfcastle. My eyes! Ze Googles do nothing!

[Jack Posted Dec 7th 2009 7:33PM]

@PATRICKmcnicholl

jygsaw gets upranked, but you get low ranked for being Captain Obvious and ruining the joke.

[DirkDickbutt Posted Dec 7th 2009 7:47PM]

@PATRICKmcnicholl
THAT'S THE JOKE

[Zmathue Posted Dec 7th 2009 5:51PM]

I already have downloaded and installed this app on my droid. It works great and returned searches for every dvd, game and book I scanned so far, this is a must have app.

[Zmathue Posted Dec 7th 2009 5:53PM]

/me scan's that picture from arrested development to see if it identifys them as Iraqi mountains.

[Ladderless Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:01PM]

I wonder if it could tap into the GPS data to narrow down the searches.

[deinfinityx Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:04PM]

@Ladderless I believe it does, the GPS icon comes one and i get locations around me before i take the photo

[sycamore714 Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:04PM]

Thats it I am getting an android phone today !!

[Timmmmmm Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:07PM]

If anyone is wondering how this works, I imagine it is something similar to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale-invariant_feature_transform#Applications

[Ladderless Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:09PM]

Thank you for the heads up. If I had bothered to watch the video first, I would have seen the GPS implementation, too.

[jivephish Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:09PM]

I just tried searching for google goggles, couldn't come up with anything in market.

[OCJP Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:31PM]

@jivephish I too am having this problem. I am searching from my DROID Eris.

[jivephish Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:34PM]

@OCJP Yeah, i'm on the Eris too. Any others?

[schmidt1985 Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:39PM]

@jivephish
No go on the sprint Hero.

[saturnblackhole Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:40PM]

@jivephish hey just search google in the market and u will see a list of google apps among them google goggles.

[OCJP Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:41PM]

@jivephish Just found out why. It's only available for 1.6 and above. It would have been nice of them to mention that... http://androidandme.com/2009/12/applications/google-goggles-now-available-for-android/

[TechTerry Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:42PM]

@jivephish

I found the app with my Droid

[Maddy Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:49PM]

@jivephish
Just search for goggles. There are only one pair of goggles in the Android market ;).

[joquarky Posted Dec 7th 2009 8:15PM]

@jivephish

I found goggles, but not favorite places =/

[m6 Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:17PM]

i have an ipod touch, which according to the experts means i am obligated to buy an iphone when i "grow up." hear me now and believe me later: i don't want a nanny phone. i want this. throw in the free navigation, free voip calling, and that n64 thing, too, please.

[DirkDickbutt Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:28PM]

"it's an Android app that takes photos, tries to recognize what in them"

MAIN SCREEN TURN ON

[o29 Posted Dec 7th 2009 8:45PM]

@(Unverified)

WHAT YOU SAY?

[OCJP Posted Dec 7th 2009 6:30PM]

Is anyone else not coming up with any search results in Android Market when searching for Goggles? I have been searching all day and my Eris can't find it... Anyone else with the same problem?!

[TC Posted Dec 7th 2009 7:06PM]

@OCJP It's a common phenomenon on Google; my mind thinks 'search for goggles' but my hands type 'search for pr0n'