Google Goggles: Image Triggered Search

When I was watching the CNBC Inside the Mind of Google, Google revealed a ‘secret’ project under the cover at Google named “Google Goggles.” Google Goggles is new search feature Google is working on that allows searchers to take a picture and ask Google, what is this picture about. Basically a way to snap a picture on your camera, upload it to Google and Google returns search results that are relevant to the picture.

I am not sure how far along this project is. According to the CNBC show, Google was testing this internally with all the Google employees. After those tests, Google was not confident in the product, so they decide to not launch it publicly – yet. It seemed as if Google wanted to make more changes to how it works and what type of results will be returned. How long that will take, I don’t know.

A Google engineer working on the project did comment that their database of matching images is somewhat minimal at this point. For a primetime release, they would need to increase the size of that database and test it thoroughly.

Here is a clip of the Google Goggles portion of the show:

eWeek has additional details on this Google Goggles product. I for one, would find this feature incredibly useful at times.

Postscript: Vic Gundotra has just announced that Google Goggles is now available in Google Labs (though not yet described or otherwise present on the site). For more detail Danny is live blogging the “evolution” press conference.

Postscript #2: Here is our new blog post with more details on this feature.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on SEM topics.