Several notable mobile applications have or are going to be released that utilize augmented reality through a phone’s camera. These apps push real-time information and process onto the screen, allowing users to scan their surroundings to discover what they are looking for.
The most notable of these is of course being developed by Google, called Google Goggles. It exists as a standalone application for Android phones and as a feature of the Google Mobile App for the iPhone. With Goggles, the user snaps a picture, which is transmitted across cellular networks to Google’s servers. Google’s computers then tell the phone what they recognized in the photo. This process can take only a second or two – and sometimes even less. Iconic buildings and artwork, products on store shelves, barcodes and magazine advertisements are a breeze. The system can recognize text on a poster and search the Web for a page with similar writing, or translate the menu at a French restaurant.
Microsoft also has a visual-search app for Bing, though its features are more limited. So far, these computer systems are less skilled at recognizing humans. But the Google Goggles team is working on a system that can identify faces in photos, as long as those people say it’s OK for Google to include them in its database.
A few similar apps are already utilizing such augmented reality features to make very useful tools. StarMap, for instance, allows you to observe thousands of stars, constellations, and other stellar objects instantly, simply by pointing your phone in the area of interest. Word Lens has the capability of instantly translating words in to numerous other languages, simply by placing the words in few of the camera – the text transforms in real time, right before your eyes. One last entertaining innovation is Peak.AR, which allows you to point your screen at nearby mountains and learn the names of every peak instantly.
Of course, Yelp also now has an augmented reality feature with its app, allowing you to view restaurant names and reviews on top of the restaurants themselves. To learn more about Google Goggles, read the full CNNTech article here.
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