Technology

Thanks to increasingly sophisticated algorithms, computers today can recognize and identify the Eiffel Tower, the Mona Lisa or a can of Budweiser.

Thanks to increasingly sophisticated algorithms, computers today can recognize and identify the Eiffel Tower, the Mona Lisa or a can of Budweiser.

"Scientific and technical progress is accelerating in an exponential (pace)."

The app displays a quick tutorial when it's first launched.

Thanks to increasingly sophisticated algorithms, computers today can recognize and identify the Eiffel Tower, the Mona Lisa or a can of Budweiser.

Furniture, clothing, accessories, gadgets, food, animals, cars, trees and many everyday objects are seen as foreign objects by the system.

But the Google Goggles team is working on a system that can identify faces in photos, as long as those people say it's OK for Google to include them in its database, Neven said.

The Goggles app can also read QR codes, those black-and-white squares found on ads and posters that, when scanned by smartphones, access videos and other interactive content.

Until Goggles can recognize everything, QR codes serve an interim need: Take a picture of something and get its digital counterpart.

At this point, it would be quicker to describe the types of things an image-search engine can interpret instead of what it can't.

Still, despite huge technological strides in the last decade or so, visual search has plenty more hurdles to clear.

Dialameh's developers have employed cameras to build apps that can help identify objects, such as cash or cereal boxes, without requiring the user to snap a picture.

"Our ambition is nothing less than being able to recognize any object on the planet," Neven said.

Neven joined Google in 2006 when the search giant acquired his company, called Neven Vision.

But rapid progress, coupled with the growing number of brilliant minds taking up the challenge, is making intelligent robo-eyesight within reach.

Google also showcases Goggles features that aren't all that practical but that create buzz for the technology, such as a version that can solve Sudoku puzzles.