Through the looking lens

Each time one watches the classic 1984 Hollywood flick, The Terminator, one must have been gripped by Arnold Schwarzenegger's shades that captured everything he looked at and immediately gave all information about objects in the field of vison. It may have taken almost three decades, but Google has turned this sci-fi fantasy into reality in the form of Google Goggles, a free application developed for cellphones with Android operating system, or on iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4 with iOS 4.0 or higher.

In an age where we are habituated to Google everything we see or hear about, Google Goggles facilitates the process in a simple, user-friendly way. All one needs to do is point the smartphone on any product, landmark, book, logo, barcode or QR code, an artwork, newspaper ads - almost absolutely anything - and this revolutionary app will instantly scan the image captured by the camera lens and open up a plethora of links and descriptions from Google's database. Goggles is literally a rendition of the saying, 'a picture paints a thousand words'. Not only does it provide relevant information about objects, its Optical Character Recognition (OCR) reads and scans text in many languages - English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Turkish - and also translates from to another.

Goggles is handy in scanning barcodes and giving maximum details about the product ranging from a packet of salt to a wine bottle. If you spot an unknown company label and desire to know more, Goggles will quench your curiosity with a simple click of the logo and extract information with a quick search. If you look at a location or a building and wish to know all about it, you don't have to rummage through guidebooks or encyclopaedias. It's way more convenient and practical to turn to this app, which immediately pulls up a map of the location, more photos of the landmark, as well as all relevant information regarding history, ownership, etc. There isn't a better guide than this while travelling.

An intriguing feature of this app is its contact-profiling ability. With Goggles, one can click a picture of a business card, website contact info or a QR code, and it automatically creates a contact profile for that person and gives you the option of adding their information to your phone contacts. Thus, it does away with the pain of typing every little detail and saves plenty of time and energy. Also, for all Sudoku addicts, Goggles is your partner-in-crime, as it can also solve a Sudoku puzzle in no time using its image. Art lovers would also find this app immensely valuable, as once pointed at an artwork, it will tell you everything: who created it, when it was created, a bio of the artist and his or her other creations.

Goggles' interface is simple and easy to use. While clicking a picture, it provides a large button to take the image. It comes with a crop function for better focus and a flashlight for use in the dark. Also, it can scan an already stored picture from the phone gallery and has a search history, too, if you want to look through something again.

Goggles has already delighted Android app users, with more than 10 million downloads and a glorious rating of 4.2 stars. Its functionality and ability to cater to the ever-curious mankind has given this app its star status. However, it has its own shortcomings. It does not provide accurate information all the time. Its findings are limited and cannot translate photos of celebrities. Not every search option is exactly useful, since it looks through similar looking images in its database. It lacks configuration options but helps one to get a hang of the operations with a simple tutorial.

The recently launched CamFind, a similar app available on Apple's iTunes App Store, is giving Goggles a run for its money. CamFind's developer Image Searchers claims Goggles is at best 20 per cent accurate. But the truth is a little different. Though CamFind might be slightly more accurate than Goggles, there are still flaws that stop CamFind from attaining perfection. For starters, it is way slower than Goggles. Secondly, unlike Goggles, CamFind cannot scan bar and QR codes. Once you take a photo of a barcode, the app simply returns "Barcode". Not much of a help. Whereas, Goggles returns the model and make of the product, identifying it from the code. The CamFind indeed has higher search accuracy than Goggles. The reason behind that might be the lethargic dedication of Google to its apps. Yet its latest 1.9 version emphasises on helping users shop by including improved product recognition.

It also provides suggestions of similar products, and saves you the time of hopping from one shop and product to another, making it a fairly more attractive choice.

Another fun feature of CamFind is that it speaks out its search result. Although, some may start finding this chatty iOS app irritating after a while. CamFind is an iOS-only app, which is a setback in itself. Nowadays, more and more are readily turning to Android handsets and an Apple app can only fare so well in this competitive market. The sheer brilliance of Goggles cannot be determined unless one uses it not just for pleasure, but realises its functionality by experiencing it.