Looking Into Google Goggles

Google Goggles is visual search for a mobile phone. Once you take a picture it is processed in Google’s datacenters and compared to other images in their index. The app takes advantage of your location, advances in computer vision and your constant mobile connection. This talk will dive into how they made it happen and what the computer is actually “seeing”.

In a nutshell, Goggles lets users search for objects using images rather than words. Simply take a picture with your phone’s camera, and if we recognize the item, Goggles returns relevant search results. Right now Goggles identifies landmarks, works of art, and products (among other things), and in all cases its ability to “see further” is rooted in powerful computing, pervasive connectivity, and the cloud:

• We first send the user’s image to Google’s datacenters
• We then create signatures of objects in the image using computer vision algorithms
• We then compare signatures against all other known items in our image recognition databases; and
• We then figure out how many matches exist; and
• We then return one or more search results, based on available meta data and ranking signals; and
• We do all of this in just a few seconds