Many people know a lot of Google applications but how many know Google Goggles? Google Goggles is a free app by google that claims to do the following -
- - Scan barcodes using Goggles to get product information
- - Scan QR codes using Goggles to extract information
- - Recognise famous landmarks
- - Translate by taking a picture of foreign language text
- - Add Contacts by scanning business cards or QR codes
- - Scan text using Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
- - Recognize paintings, books, DVDs, CDs, and just about any 2D image
- - Solve Sudoku puzzles
- - Find similar products
So I decided to test every single thing they claim to see if it works consistently and accurately.
- I scanned 3 item's barcodes. First,a tic tac mint box. It scanned it and performed a google search of it and then i got the usual web results. Then, I scanned a Hardy Boys book. It scanned the barcode and opened up Google Shopping and then even told me how much the book would cost. Third, an Agatha Christie book unfortunately, it was not able to scan it. That is 2 out of 3.
- I then tried the QR code scanner. I scanned a QR code of a college. It gave me their website and offered to save its contact. Perfect. 3 out of 4.
- I then scanned the Taj Mahal, but instead of giving me information, it opened up Google Shopping and showed me an iPhone case which had a Taj Mahal picture on it. Epic Fail. I then took a picture of the Eifel Tower and it surprisingly worked. So I give it half a point. That is now 3.5 out of 5.
- I then took a picture of I'm hungry in chineese and took a picture of it, but it couldnt translate it since it only suppourts these languages. - English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Turkish. Then I tried the same thing in French and it worked perfectly. The score now is 4.5 out of 6.
- Test 5 is combined in test 2.
- I scanned the heading of the Times Of India newspaper and it offered to search the web for its logo or for the text "Times Of India." Perfect again. 5.5 out of 7.
- I took a picture of the most famous painting in the world. The Mona Lisa. It worked again giving me a description of the painting. Great! 6.5 out of 8.
- I took a picture of a Sudoku puzzle. Unfortunately, it only searched Google for sudoku. Thats 7.5 out of 9.
- For the last test I took a picture of a tic tac mint , hoping that it would reply with results of Altoids or Polo, but it only gave me information of the company and searched Google for it.
Thats the end of the test folks. 7.5 out of 10 is what it scores. Note that this test was conducted under below average lighting conditions, so you shouldn't have a problem with lighting. To sum up, this is a great application which everybody should have on their smartphone. Till next time!