Google aims Goggles at Apple's iPhone Google Lab's visual-search technology, Google Goggles, should be available for iPhone users later this year. "We're working on an iPhone version, and hope to have it out by the end of the year," David Petrou, a Google staff engineer working on the Goggles project, told his keynote audience at Monday's Hot Chips conference at …
Why not write a client app to control the camera and then upload to the web-app for analysis and search, as it has to go online for the search anyway it's not adding /that/ much overhead as long as it keeps the image at a nice compression (though obviously not overly so as to render the analysis useless).
This way the only client apps needed would be to control the camera and the rest hooks into the web API keep differing code base development to a minimum.
Simples, as a certain meerkat would say.
Though before they go and chase Apple users, could you get the one running on my Froyo Desire to work a little better first 8)
Isn't that how it works anyway? I certainly notice how long the "recognition" takes in 2G areas vs 3G/Wifi coverage on my Hero and the Desire.
Take the picture locally, beam it to Google's cloud (whilst displaying some mystical blue bar) and let the clusters do the analysis before spitting the result back to the End User. I also believed this was how they did Voice Search?
Your final point though is correct - it needs a lot of improvement. Whilst it can often get the 'topic' of the item, it doesn't seem to be able to recognise the item specifically, not without a barcode anyway.
It's cool to be able to scan something and have it recognized but the app is seriously limited by requiring a full internet connection to work. If I'm out then chances are I don't have internet. Why won't it let me save pictures and search them later when I'm actually connected to the internet?
A lot of Google apps are like that. For example the driving directions in maps is cool but if you're not in contact with a network it's worse than useless. I realise that caching directions could get hairy but some level of functionality must be possible, after all its all that most satnav apps do.
Some level of functionality must be possible.
My android phone has a storage card. Why can't I take a picture of something I saw in a bookshop or supermarket and search for it later when I get home? Why can't Googles let me open a picture I've taken with the camera app and do the same thing? It's not rocket science.
As for maps, the same issue applies. If I ask for directions before I leave the house, why won't the app let me save the maps and directions and use them from offline mode? As I drive along it can still advise me which turn to take and so forth. If I diverge from the directions and it doesn't know where I am it can still advise me that I am 1/2 mile West of route or similar to give me some clue how to get back.
As it is it does sweet FA which makes it pretty crap.
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