The idea of conducting visual searches is nothing new, but Google is attempting to bring just such a service to market. In recent tests, its version of visual search, called Google Goggles (totally different from Mail Goggles), didn't quite get the job done. Can Google make it work?Visual search works like this. You see something that you'd like to know more about. You take a picture of it with a mobile phone, and then perform a search based on the image you've captured. The search engine (in this case, Google) takes the image, analyzes it against images it has stored in its database, and then returns search results. All this is accomplished without the user entering any text. The idea is that it is more convenient than typing, especially when you don't know what the heck to type.

Google recently demonstrated the technology on Dec. 3 CNBC Segment called "Inside the Mind of Google." Google Product Manager Hartmut Neven took a picture of Santa Monica pier and performed a "Goggle Search" based on that image. Google services were able to correctly identified the pier.

"Imagine you're a tourist and you arrive at this place and you would like to know more about it, all you will have to do is take a shot of the [Santa Monica pier] sign and you see we recognized this as the Santa Monica pier," Neven said.

"Imagine you are on travel in Paris and you visit a museum. If a picture catches your attention you can simply take a photo and send it to the VMS [Visual Mobile Search] service. Within seconds you will receive an audio-visual narrative explaining the image to you. If you happen to be connected to a 3G network, the response time would be below a second. After the museum visit you might step outside and see a coffeehouse.

"Just taking another snapshot from within the VMS client application is all you have to do in order to retrieve travel guide information. In this case location information is available through triangulation or inbuilt GPS it can assist the recognition process. Inside the coffeehouse you study the menu but your French happens to be a bit rusty. Your image based search engine supports you in translating words from the menu so that you have at least an idea of what you can order."

Unfortunately, VMS isn't quite ready for prime time yet. Focus group tests held in August were unsuccessful. Neven didn't explain what about the tests failed, though Google's engineers are still working out bugs within the massive image database that is the basis for all search results.

Hopefully Google will be able to work the kinks out before too long.

[via eWeek]