Google project manager Shailesh Nalawadi confirmed that they are developing an iPhone version of Goggles, the mobile visual search tool Google launched in December 2009 for Android devices. The app should be coming “soon”.
“A more interesting announcement, perhaps, is that the company plans to release access to its image recognition technology via APIs by year’s end. “APIs are good and we would love to offer recognition capabilities as APIs eventually,” Nalawadi said. He added that the Goggles team is more concerned at the moment with continuing to develop the app, innovating on features and understanding users’ wants and needs. APIs, he added, are likely a couple quarters away.
Other features Nalawadi says are on the Goggles road map include enhanced recognition capabilities, an AR-style user interface, as well as using computer vision to determine location and audio visual search.”
Now we just have to hope Apple won’t reject the app, as it’s done before with Augmented Reality based applications. Goggles is a great technology, and we can’t wait to try it out on our iPhones. Check out the presentation video below.
