There are some things that are hard to put in words, like a painting that you want to find out the artist of. For searches like that, try Google Goggles -- it lets you search the web using photos that you've taken on your mobile phone. So just open the Goggles app on your phone, snap a photo of that painting, and find search results all about it. Sometimes pictures really are worth a thousand words.
Watch a video about Google GogglesBest search queries
Google Goggles works better with certain types of queries. It can recognize up to three items at a time. For best results, try taking pictures of the following:
- Books & DVDs
- Landmarks
- Barcodes & QR codes
- Logos
- Contact info
- Artwork
- Businesses
- Products
- Text
Currently, it's not so good when taking pictures of the following:
- Animals
- Plants
- Cars
- Furniture
- Apparel
Optimizing your photos for Goggles
For the best results when taking pictures, hold your phone in "left landscape" mode, as shown below, and press the on-screen shutter button with your right thumb.
Goggles availability
Google Goggles is currently available for the following devices:
- Android devices running Android 2.1 and above. To see which version of Android you're running, go to Settings > About phone > Android version.
- iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 devices with the Google Search App.