Google launches Goggles visual search app

Google has launched a beta version of Goggles, in the form of an app for Android phones, which enables users to snap objects like books, business cards and landmarks and have identifying information appear on their phone.

The exciting technology promises to enable you to point your Android handset at a book, a business card or painting, and Google will tell you all about it. Goggles, which uses a combination of OCR software and GPS-sourced location data could revolutionise how people use their smartphones.

For example you could on holiday in a new town and see a restaurant. Using Goggles you snap a picture of the front of the establishment and if all goes according to plan, the name of the eatery will appear onscreen. You tap the name and Google presents Maps style information about the restaurant including reviews by people who've eaten there.

Point your phone at a painting and Goggles will send you information on who painted it etc.

A particularly useful feature is the ability to scan business cards, so that all the data appears in usable fields on your Android phone's address book.

On its website, Google warns that Goggles is 'not quite perfect yet' but that it is 'only scratching the surface of visual search technology.'

For example, Goggles 'doesn't yet work well on food, cars, animals or plants.'

In the future Google suggests that Goggles may be able to do things like suggest moves in a chess game or identify a plant by you photographing a leaf.

So far the beta of Goggles is only available for smartphones running Android 1.6. You can download it for free by going to the Android Market on your phone and searching for Google Goggles.