Google’s Augmented Reality Lets You Search Your World [Video]

© Google

Eventually we’re going to reach a tipping point where cutting-edge Augmented Reality apps become too pervasive to track individually. In the meantime they’re still coming out slowly enough that we can pluck out the prominent ones and pass them along one by one, as with this landmark new technology from Google.

The point, of course, is to add digital context to your everyday world. One of the obvious implementations is to add historical layers to reality, transporting tourists back in time in Sydney or Europe. But anything that provides additional information about your immediate environment fits under the Augmented Reality umbrella. And now with Google Goggles, that literally includes anything on the web:

How does it work? Just open the app, snap a photo and voilà: Google will process the image and return search results. The photo search functionality eliminates the need to type or say anything on your mobile device, and it adds context to your real-world surroundings. While the technology is pretty remarkable, Google admits that it is still in its infancy. So while some image searches work brilliantly — think photos of books, business cards, artwork, places, logos and landmarks — don’t be too disappointed if your image searches for food, animals, plants and cars are less than stellar.

And the video:

We’re still holding out for actual goggles, where digital content floats in front of our eyes as we turn our head in one direction or another. They can be just regular old sunglasses with an LCD and a microcamera, taking in images and then adding to them. Faster please.