Google Goggles seemed amazing to me when it was first announced. The thought that I could perform visual searches on things I didn’t recognize was intriguing and something I thought would – cliche alert – revolutionize the way people discover information. Goggles might still do that someday, but not yet. Despite the impressive features that Goggles promise, they do not live up to the hype at the moment.
The official video touting Goggles suggests that scanning a business card will allow the app to scan the text and add that person to a phone’s contacts directory. Nice in theory, but real world tests of the application are not as smooth or successful. Below is a video of my attempts to get Goggles working in object recognition, text recognition for adding business card info to contacts, and using the augmented reality mode.
Results are mixed in this video and on several other attempts that led me to make it. Goggles is still an interesting app, but it’s not quite there yet.
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December 31st, 2009 at 4:04 pm
I was very happy when I took a picture of a business card and Goggles allowed me to add the contact information from the card directly to my address book. Otherwise, I haven’t invented a good use for Goggles, and its accuracy has been too poor to make me believe in it.
Having said that, I find Evernote’s app (well, Evernote in general) really disappointing, and so I’m very happy to have Goggles to import contacts.
December 31st, 2009 at 9:21 pm
The image you took of the index card was blurry and not focused on the contact information itself. Try taking a closer image next time with the card on a still surface. Works great for me.
December 31st, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Works really really well with DVD, book and game covers…
January 1st, 2010 at 1:44 am
Google is the embodyment of the expression "The dogs may bark but the caravan moves on". They toss something out and then just sit back and watch, all the while gathering information. It will eventually work well I'm thinking. It will take a while to build up the database just like Street View did. Now, Street View is amazing. When I use the baked in Google maps on my Motorola Droid phone to navigate somewhere, it shows me the house when I get there.
January 2nd, 2010 at 5:31 pm
Goggles didn't recognize your phone number and that is why it did it transfer when you clicked add contact.
January 3rd, 2010 at 2:17 am
I don't think any OCR application would be able to pick up "soul" on the Soul Rush business card when there's a stain on the "u"…that's not a problem with Goggles.
January 5th, 2010 at 3:58 am
I originally tried Goggles with normal around the house things, a coffee maker, Logitech trackball, television set, and something else. It was 1 for 4, not very impressive.
After a couple of quick test, the biz card recognition gets a C-. It's useful in a pinch, but would never replace an app like CardScanner which has amazing recognition capabilities. Goggles just needs to be a B to be a killer app like Navigation is.
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