Android and iPhone owners get a little more help with everyday tasks.
Google (GOOG) updated its Google Goggles mobile app today to perform tasks such as scanning barcodes, which used to be part of its mobile product search on Android. The Mobile app however is cross platform letting Apple’s (AAPL) iOS users in on the fun.
Goggles won’t just recognize barcodes, it will also recognize ads in magazines and newspapers according to Google.
We’re excited to take another step in our vision of connecting offline media to online media. The next time you’re flipping through the pages of your favorite magazine, try taking a picture of an ad with Goggles. Goggles will recognize print ad and return web search results about the product or brand. This new feature of Goggles is enabled for print ads appearing in major U.S. magazines and newspapers from August 2010 onwards.
This feature is different from the marketing experiment that we announced in November. We’re now recognizing a much broader range of ads than we initially included in our marketing experiment. And when we recognize a print ad, we return web search results. While in the experiment, we return a specific link to an external website.
And last but not least, Goggles will now solve Sudoku puzzles for you. Just point your iPhone or Android camera at an incomplete Sudoku puzzle and Google will solve it in the cloud and send you back the results. Check the video below.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdftOloAH9Q&w=600&h=375]