At the annual developer conference – Google I/O in 2017, tech giant Google announced a huge new addition to the family. Google made everyone aware of the new Google Lens ahead of the official launch of Pixel 2 and Pixel 2XL. There is a lot that Google Lens can do. But to sum it up, it is basically Google search results making use of the smartphone’s camera or Google Image search on steroids. Google Lens takes cues from the smartphone camera and uses Artificial Intelligence technology paired up with deep machine learning – and what it does is that it can identify an object, understand what it has identified and provide results based on what it sees.
Among the list of things Google Lens can do is that it can identify a monument and provide details such as how to get there, timings and so on. This is also its most talked about feature. Similarly, if you point your smartphone camera with Google Lens to an object such as a flower, then it can provide you with its details, like what kind of flower it is and so on.
The use of Google Lens is not just limited to detecting something and provide information for it. Another useful feature of Google Lens is that it can take a picture of the WiFi’s SSID sticker. Then, with the help of Google Lens, your phone will automatically connect to the Wifi network without having you to type the password.
If you point it towards a drink, then Google Lens is smart enough to tell what sort of drink it is.
With Google Lens, your smartphone camera won’t just see what you see, but will also understand what you see to help you take action. #io17 pic.twitter.com/viOmWFjqk1
— Google (@Google) May 17, 2017
As of now, Google Lens helps Google Assistant and Google Photos to be more powerful a tool than what they are. But with Google making Google Lens available on other Android devices as well, eventually, other Google apps may also see a boost.
With Google Photos, it will be able to identify what the photo entails and provide relevant information. Let’s suppose you want to buy a book and have clicked a picture of it. With the help of Google Lens, you can get information such as where to buy the book and what sort of discounts it has.
Rolling out today, Android users can try Google Lens to do things like create a contact from a business card or get more info about a famous landmark. To start, make sure you have the latest version of the Google Photos app for Android: https://t.co/KCChxQG6Qm
Coming soon to iOS pic.twitter.com/FmX1ipvN62— Google Photos (@googlephotos) March 5, 2018
However, one can’t really say which smartphones it will support and which ones it will not so we can’t tell you at the moment when you can start making use of the app. So far, Google has only announced that other Android devices will get the Google Lens feature soon. And so far, neither the list of Android devices nor the Android version it will be supported to is out. The feature will soon enter the Apple’s ecosystem and will be made available for iOS devices too. As of now, if you own a Google Pixel 2 or Pixel 2 XL, then you can go ahead and make the most of this tool.