Google have just announced their first augmented reality application for the Android device. Google Googles for the Android allows users to search by taking pictures of real world objects and having Google provide related information. However unlike existing augmented reality browsers that rely on a compass and location based services to provide search data, Goggles uses a visual recognition engine and location based services to provide results. In theory that would mean that if you take a picture of a well know landmark, eg Big Ben in London it would check the image against buildings in the local area to provide a better match.

Aside from landmarks, Google Goggles supports other searches, if you are in a museum and see a famous picture and want to know the artist, just take a picture and it will search Google for the picture and artist name. In your local supermarket and see a bottle of wine and wonder is it a good year? Just take a picture of the label and Google Goggles will tell you.

It looks pretty exciting. Google Goggles has been released as a Google Labs product so it’s very much in a beta phase. iPhone owners don’t panic. Google plans on releasing a version for the Apple iPhone once the application is out of beta.

Google Goggles offical video

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