Google Lens, the company’s computer vision search engine, is now available on desktop Chrome. Google did not provide a specific timetable, but a teaser tweet revealed what the feature will look like.
Inspiration can strike at any time. ⚡ Soon you’ll be able to use #GoogleLens to instantly search for products within images while browsing on the Google app on iPhone. And psst… Lens is coming to Chrome on desktop too 👀 #SearchOn pic.twitter.com/HTQCz7sjoO
— Google (@Google) September 29, 2021
On desktop Chrome, you’ll soon be able to right-click a picture and select “Search with Google Lens,” dimming the page and bringing up a clipping tool to submit a specific image to Google’s photo AI. Following a round-trip to the Internet, a sidebar with numerous results will appear.
While Google.com’s image search just looks for comparable images, Lens can recognize objects in a picture such as people, text, math formulas, animals, landmarks, products, and more. It can translate text using the camera and even copy and paste text from the real world (using OCR) into an app. The feature has been there for a while on Android and iOS, initially as a camera-driven search that brought up a live viewfinder, then in Google Photos, and most recently as a long-press option for web images in Chrome for Android.
Google Lens is also becoming smarter. The service is getting a new feature that will allow you to ask follow-up questions to an image search. Google offers two really amazing demonstrations here. One method lets a user scan a photo of a shirt and query Google for “socks with this pattern” before it finds a match. Otherwise, looking for a certain clothing pattern would be nearly impossible. You could type in descriptors such as “floral pattern,” but you’d receive similar patterns that you’d have to scroll through rather than the identical pattern.
Another fantastic use case for visual search is locating something you don’t know the name of. The user in the example has a damaged bike and needs to repair something with the rear cogset. They don’t know what the back gear changer-thingy is called, so they snap a picture of it and search for it on Google. It appears to be a “derailleur,” and the user enters in “how to fix” and Google finds instructions.
Therefore, Lens will be able to search for both photos and text at the same time. Both of these are great examples, but because they are prepared demos, it’s difficult to predict how well any of this will truly function. According to Google, the feature will be available “in the coming months.”
