Google Goggles = Google Visual Search - Great Start with a Few Oddities

First, my apologies for the lack of clear visibility of the Droid’s screen in the video above. The Droid is definitely difficult to see in direct sunlight. And, yes, I had the screen brightness cranked up. The video itself was recorded using an HTC Touch Pro2 (Windows Mobile 6.1).

Google’s Visual Search product is named Google Goggle and is available for the Android smartphone platform…

Mobile Search for a New Era: Voice, Location and Sight

I installed it on my Droid and took a walk outside in to search for landmarks it might recognize. Here’s what I’ve learnd about how it works and what it appears to expect so far…

– A landmark that occupies too small of a portion of a photo is NOT recognized
– A landmark photo from the wrong side is not recognized (behind vs. front)
– It doesn’t seem to know about a number of famous landmarks in my neck of the woods
– It produces some oddities like displaying the name of a local educational institution in what appeared to be Korean writing.

Despite these issues, the app is definitely a keeper on my Droid. And, I’m planning to test it out quite a bit over the next few days and weeks.

I should also note that it did well when identifying books and other products. But, its the geographical landmark feature that I’m most interested in.

YouTube video courtesy of Google