Google Lens: What is it? How does it work?

Google Lens is an app developed by Google, and it was announced back during the 2017 Google I/O developer conference, the app is basically designed to bring up relevant information through visual analysis, so we can say it’s just like Google search but instead of typing, you can use your camera, let’s say you saw something you don’t know exactly what it is, or a product that you’re not sure about it, you can take a picture and search on Lens and you will get the information you need. When it was released, Google Lens was exclusive on Google Pixel devices, but it’s such a cool app, that you will probably want it on your smartphone, well I’m happy to tell you that you will get it. Google finally announced that Lens will be available on more devices on their 2018 I/O developer conference. But how does the app work? And how far can this technology go? That what we will discuss in this article.

Google Lens start page

What is Google Lens?

Google Lens was one of the biggest announcement by Google in 2017, but back then, the AI feature was only added to Google Photos, so after you take a picture of something, you can open it in Google Photos app, and press the Lens shortcut in the bottom right of the screen, and then Lens would recognize the items in the picture, and give you a list of suggestions, or some information about the items. For example, if you take a picture of a book, Lens will recognize the book and give you search results that include the name of the author, the year of publication, and other information on that book, and it will do the same with a lot of other things. Another cool thing to use Google Lens for is to save details from a business card, or from an ad, all you need to do is to take a picture of the business card, and by using Lens, all the details from the name to phone number and email will be added to your contacts. That was basically Google Lens when it was first introduced in 2017, and the only way to access it was through Google Photos app, but now after the huge boost and update that Lens got during 2018 I/O conference, the app is getting a lot of new features, you just need to open your camera and point your smartphone on anything and Lens will recognize the item, you don’t need to take pictures anymore. Another cool and useful feature is that Google Lens will be able to recognize restaurants, cafes, bars, and clubs, a small pop-up window will show up on your screen, providing you with reviews, address details, and working hours, just like Google Maps, but you don’t need to type anything or search on the map, just point your camera at anything you want. The app will become more and more fun when you just point your smartphone on random day-to-day objects just so you can see what will the app say about them, or will it recognize them or not?.

If you think that’s it, then let me tell you that you are wrong, Google announced some new features that are coming to Lens, first there’s the smart text selection, if you point your phone’s camera on a certain text, you can select the text using Lens, and copy it and use it somewhere else, and I’m not gonna go through how much time does this cool feature save us. At the same time and instead of copying the text in order to search for it, you will have the option to search the text you selected through Google Assistant without the need to copy anything, this is quite nice when you’re studying from a book and you want to search for a word’s meaning for example. Another thing that you can use Google Lens for is to search for clothing, and home furnishings, using the same method, you just point your camera and Lens would give you suggestions and some deals to buy this piece of clothes. And the last thing as I mentioned before, you can use it just for fun, just move your smartphone in your surrounding environment, Lens will recognize types of trees and flowers, species of dogs or other animals and much more, it’s a really cool thing to do from time to time.

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How can I use it?

As we mentioned before, for the past year, if you wanted to use Google Lens, you would have to go to Google Photos and use Lens feature from there, but now you have more ways to use it, Lens is getting integrated into Google Assistant app. So if you have the feature on your phone, then you can open Google Assistant, and on the right bottom, you can find the Lens shortcut, once you click on it, the camera will open and you can point your phone on almost anything around you, and see what will you get in the viewfinder box. Lens shortcut is already there for a lot of smartphones from different brands. So for some users, those will be the only two ways that you can use Google Lens through, for some others, Google Lens will be implemented in the phone’s camera app, so you just open your camera and you’ll find the Lens shortcut. Those three ways are the only ways that you can use Lens through, it’s not a standalone app,  just a feature added to your smartphones for now.

Does my device support Google Lens?

After its launch, Google lens came to many devices, if you wanna check whether you have it on your smartphone or not, just open Google Photos and choose a photo and search for Lens shortcut, not all devices have it in the Assistant app yet, and not all devices will have it in the camera app as well, but during 2018 I/O Google announced that the Lens feature will be directly added to the camera app on “supported devices” from several manufacturers, including LG, Motorola, Xiaomi, Sony, HMD/Nokia, Transsion, TCL, OnePlus, BQ, and Asus. though how long it will take it to arrive to each device, that will depend on the manufacturer. By the end of June 2018, all supported devices should have it already in their camera app, don’t forget to check it out.

Third party companies that Google Lens Supports

Read also: Google is planning to introduce audio search

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