• Google is adding gesture searching to its Google Lens feature
• The update is coming to the Chrome and Google apps on iOS
• The firm is also working on more AI capabilities for Lens

If you use the Chrome or Google apps on your iPhone, there’s now a new way to quickly find information based on whatever is on your screen. If it works well, it could end up saving you time and make your searches a little bit easier.

The update concerns Google Lens, which lets you search using images rather than words. Google says you can now use a gesture to select something on-screen and then search for it. You can draw around an object, for example, or tap it to select it. It works whether you’re reading an article, shopping for something new, or watching a video, as Google explains.

The best iPhones have had a similar feature for a while, but it’s always been an unofficial workaround that required using the Action button and the Shortcuts app. Now, it’s a built-in feature in some of the most popular iOS apps available.

Both the Chrome and Google apps on iOS already have Google Lens built in, but the past implementation was a little clunkier than today’s update. Before, you had to save an image or take a screenshot, and then upload it to Google Lens. That would potentially involve using multiple apps and was much more of a hassle. Now, a quick gesture is all it takes.

How to use the new Google Lens on iPhone

When you’re using the Chrome or Google apps, tap the three-dot menu button, then select Search Screen with Google Lens or Search this Screen, respectively. This will put a colored overlay on top of the web page you’re currently viewing.

You'll see a box at the bottom of your screen reading, “Circle or tap anywhere to search.” You can now use a gesture to select an item on-screen. Doing so will automatically search for the selected object using Google Lens.

The new gesture feature will roll out globally this week and will be available in the Chrome and Google apps on iOS. Google also confirmed it will add a new Lens icon in the app’s address bar in the future, which will give you another way to use gestures in Google Lens.

Google added that it is also leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to add new abilities to Lens. This will let it look up more novel or unique subjects, and doing so will mean Google’s AI Overviews appear more frequently in your results.

This feature will also be rolled out this week and is coming to English-language users in nations where AI Overviews are available. For now, it's set to arrive in the Google app for Android and iOS first, with Chrome desktop and mobile availability arriving later.

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Google just announced loads of AI search updates including video search capabilities in Google Lens adding a whole new way for people to search the internet.

The new Video Search feature comes at a time when every major tech company is looking to one-up its competitors in the race to have truly useful AI functionality that sticks with consumers - could searching the web via video be it?

Rolling out to all Google app users on iOS and Android, Video Search flexes Google’s AI muscles just in time for the launch of Apple’s Lens competitor the Apple Intelligence feature, Visual Intelligence. Apple’s offering is yet to receive a release date but it’s at the core of the company’s marketing for the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro, taking advantage of Camera Control.

Visual Intelligence lets you snap an image of something and quickly get information on whatever you’re looking at. Whether you’re snapping a photo of a closed restaurant to check opening times (apparently places don’t show opening hours in their windows anymore) or aiming your iPhone’s camera at a friend’s dog to check the breed (we don’t ask questions anymore either), Visual Intelligence is essentially Apple’s competitor to Google Lens - but new video and voice features in Lens leave it behind before the feature even launches.

Search what you record

So how does Video Search work? And would you even want to use it? You’re now able to snap videos on Google Lens and quickly ask questions related to what you’re seeing. The example Google gave was a person recording a school of fish in an aquarium and asking Lens to analyze the species based on search results. It’s pretty cool stuff, but how much more useful is video recording than snapping a quick photo?

At the time of writing, I’ve not been able to test Google’s new Video Search functionality, which is available globally for users enrolled in Search Labs ‘AI Overview and more’ experiment. I’ve also not had the opportunity to test Visual Intelligence, and as far as I’m aware no one outside the walls of Apple has had the pleasure either. With new video search functionality and even voice search functionality coming to Lens, I can’t help but feel like Visual Intelligence is already lagging behind in the same way Siri was compared to other voice assistants when it launched back in 2011.

There are a lot of questions here and we won’t get answers for at least a few months. But I have to ask, do people even care about Video Search anyway? Or will Visual Intelligence’s dedicated launch button on the side of all iPhone 16s be enough to make people start searching without typing?

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Google just announced huge AI updates for Search and Lens, catapulting everyone into an artificially intelligent future whether you like it or not.

Google Search will now be organized by AI, helping you get the results you want faster. The company announced the rollout will begin in the US starting with recipes and meal inspiration on mobile devices like the best iPhone.

Google also announced a new design for AI Overviews that brings links into the summary and make it easier for users to access the websites they are looking for. Not only will you now have links in AI Overviews, but Google is incorporating ads into AI search results and Lens. This means you’ll get recommendations of products related to your prompts, not just summaries and links to helpful webpages.

Lens’ major AI updates include a new Voice Search and Video Search, giving you even more ways to use Google’s eyes to do your online searching. Google says you’ll be able to upload videos directly to Lens and ask AI about moving objects.

Google’s example is a trip to the aquarium where you upload a video of the fish in a tank and ask, “Why are they swimming together?” Lens can then produce an AI overview with all the information you need.

Voice Search will act similarly, allowing you to converse with Lens in a way that's similar to ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode and Gemini Live. New ways to interact with Lens are not the only AI updates coming to the platform, however.

Google is adding a significant shopping update that will let you take pictures of products out in the wild and quickly get a new results page with key information on the product and which retailers you can buy it from. All of these updates to Google Lens are now available globally in the Google app for Android and iOS.

Circle to Search for everyone

Last but not least, Android fans have a new way to interact with Google Search with the arrival of Circle to Search on ‘more than 150 million Android devices.’ Not only will Circle to Search be accessible to more users, but Google has announced that Circle to Search can now identify songs in movies and other audio heard while browsing the web. Hear a song you like in a YouTube video, just simply circle the video and search to get the song title.

Google’s major AI updates

Google’s announcements today usher in a new era for Google Search and Lens, which emphasizes that users will just have to come to terms with the AI revolution. With better AI optimization in search results and new ways to search by using video or voice, it’s clear that Google sees AI as a pillar in the future of the company’s search engine.

AI has slowly been implemented into our regular search results and with constant optimizations, like the addition of links in today’s updates, it’s only a matter of time before you won’t have a choice but to use an artificially intelligent search engine.

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The iPhone 16 was just announced and it has an amazing new Apple Intelligence feature called Visual Intelligence.

Revealed at the September Apple event 'Glowtime', the new incredible AI feature allows you to click the new Camera Control button on the side of the phone and use a multimodal AI to give you search results on the fly. Ever wanted to know what that dog breed walking by is? Sorted.

You can search anything your camera sees using Visual Intelligence and the new Camera Control button on the iPhone 16. Visual Intelligence works similarly to Google Lens, but 'Designed by Apple in California'. While this new feature is definitely an exciting Apple Intelligence addition, I still wish Google Pixel's Circle to Search feature was on iPhone.

The iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus are powered by a new A18 chip made from the ground up for Apple Intelligence. The Visual Intelligence feature will be available later this year, meaning you'll only be able to use the Camera Control button for, you guessed it, the camera at launch.

Visual Intelligence on iPhone 16

The iPhone 16 isn't just getting a new Camera Control button, it's also getting the iPhone 15 Pro's Action button, which is capable of launching any shortcut you can think of.

The new Visual Intelligence feature is also available on the newly announced iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, which now have larger displays compared to last year's Pro models alongside the A18 Pro chip. The larger 6.3- and 6.9-inch displays are perfect for Visual Intelligence, allowing you to easily frame whatever you want to use AI to search for and view it on a larger display.

Apple Intelligence arrives in beta next month, with future AI abilities like Visual Intelligence and an upgraded Siri with context awareness coming soon after.

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Thanks to a recent update, Google Lens now allows you to add voice recordings to image searches, giving inquiries vital context. This feature appears to have been discovered by Android Police after they encountered a new glow animation on the app. According to the report, the glowing was over the magnifying glass icon, and tapping it caused a “Search with Voice” tooltip to pop up on the screen, informing them of the change.

Holding down on the shutter button expands it, and a message appears telling you to “Speak now to ask about this image.” You then proceed to issue a command or ask a question, and what you say appears on the screen as a floating text transcription. Google Lens will begin its search soon after you let go of the button, taking the recording into account.

Android expert Mishaal Rahman posted a demonstration of the feature in action. He asked Google Lens to count how many blueberries there were on his plate. Rahman states inquiries are displayed on Google Search, where “Gemini will attempt to provide an answer” inside an AI Overview.

Performance

The key word in that last sentence is “attempt” because Google Lens doesn’t always get things right. We received the update on our Android phone and immediately began testing it out, and our results were pretty mixed.

In one test, we asked the app where we could buy a particular brand of sparkling water. Google Lens, with a bit of help from Gemini, showed us nearby stores selling that same brand. Next, we asked it to identify the food we were eating, and the software correctly identified it as pico de gallo. However, when told to count the buttons on a PS5 controller, Google Lens either failed or gave a wrong answer.

The tool works pretty well for the most part, although it can fumble a response occasionally. Still, the update functions pretty well for something that saw a quick turnaround. Hints of it were first “spotted in development” about a month ago by industry deep diver AssembleDebug on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter). 

And now it's a full-on feature in almost no time at all. Android Police states the update is a server-side push, so it should already be available on all Android smartphones. If you don’t see it, ensure you have the latest patches for the Google Search and Lens apps installed on your mobile device.

While we have you check out TechRadar's roundup of the best Android phones for 2024.

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Google Chrome on the desktop is going to get the equivalent of the popular Circle to Search feature on mobiles, and the ability, powered by Google Lens, should arrive in the browser soon.

As 9 to 5 Google reports, on a Chromebook, the feature will be activated by clicking on a Google Lens icon in the URL bar of the Chrome browser, but it’ll be a bit more hidden on Windows 11 or macOS. Outside of ChromeOS, you’ll need to head into the Chrome menu and select ‘Search with Google Lens.’

Whichever route you take, once you fire up the feature, you can highlight something on a web page that you want to search for (using a resizable box), whether that’s an element of a picture or video.

The image search results will then swiftly be presented to you in a sidebar in the same tab as the web page.

Analysis: A very welcome polish for Chrome

This is a relatively small change in some respects – the addition of just a small icon, or a menu option in Windows/Mac – but it’s one that could have a major impact on how you search using Google Chrome.

Whatever you’re looking at in your desktop browser, if you’re curious about something you spot in, say, the background of a video – “what’s that car?” for example – you can simply pause the clip, fire up Search with Google Lens, swiftly highlight said car, and boom, you’re (hopefully) fully informed about the vehicle. (And you can use the search box in the side panel to further explore details on it, if you wish).

This is a really smart change in our books, but it’s not here just yet. As 9 to 5 Google observes, after being hidden in development for some time, the feature is now live in the recent Chrome 128 beta (and ChromeOS beta too). With the functionality also written up in the ‘what’s new’ in Chrome page, the expectation is that this Google Lens search option is set to debut shortly.

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Google seemingly has plans to expand its Circle to Search feature to other Android phones via Google Lens. In a recent deep dive, news site Android Authority found clues to the update within the recent Google app betas files and compiled them all together. 

What’s particularly interesting is they managed to get the tool working on a smartphone, possibly hinting at an imminent release. According to the report, they even managed to get a popup notification informing users that the update would appear.

It tells people to hold down the home button to access Circle to Search, much like the experience on the Galaxy S24. Upon activation, a three-button navigation bar appears at the bottom, and an accompanying video shows the tool in action as it looks up highlighted portions of the Play Store on Google Search. The UI looks, unsurprisingly, similar to how it does on Galaxy phones, with search inquiries rising from the bottom.

Clashing with Gemini

You may notice that the rainbow filter animation is gone, having been replaced by a series of dots and lines. Well, that’s the old beta, and the newer version has the animation and the Translate button, which shows up in the lower right hand corner next to the search bar.

At a glance, it seems Circle to Search on Google Lens is close to launching, although it is still a work in progress with a few issues to iron out. For example, how will it work on a smartphone housing the Gemini app as holding down on the home button launches the chatbot? Google might give Circle to Search priority in this instance, so long pressing opens the tool rather than the AI. However, at this point, it’s too early to tell.

New navigation option

Android Authority also found “XML files referring to pill-based gesture navigation.” If you don’t know what that is, it’s the oval at the bottom of Android displays. The shape lets you move between apps with basic gestures. Google Lens could offer this option, allowing users to ditch the three-button navigation bar, but it may not come out for a while as it doesn’t work in the betas.

Circle to Search on Google Lens will most likely stick to the three buttons, though. The original report has a theory about this, as they believe implementing the pill navigation would systemic OTA (over-the-air) updates to millions upon millions of Android smartphones, which may or “may not be feasible.” So, to get Circle to Search out sooner to people, the navigation option will have to be pushed back a bit. The three-button solution is easier to implement.

There is no word on when the update will arrive, but we hope it’s soon, as it is a great feature and currently a highlight for the Galaxy and Pixel devices that have it. 

While you're here, be sure to check out TechRadar's list of the best Android phones for 2024.

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It's another big week in artificial intelligence in a year that's been full of them, and Google has teased a new AI feature coming to mobile devices just hours ahead of its Google I/O 2024 event – where we're expecting some major announcements.

A social media post from Google shows someone asking their phone about what's being shown through the camera. In this case, it's people setting up the Google I/O stage, which the phone correctly identifies.

User and phone then go on to have a real-time chat about Google I/O 2024, complete with a transcription of the conversation on screen. We don't get any more information than that, but it's clearly teasing some of the upcoming reveals.

As far as we can tell, it looks like a mix of existing Google Lens and Google Gemini technologies, but with everything running instantly. Lens and Gemini can already analyze images, but studying real-time video feeds would be something new.

The AI people

It's all very reminiscent of the multimodal features – mixing audio, text, and images – that OpenAI showed off with its own ChatGPT bot yesterday. ChatGPT now has a new AI model called GPT-4 Omni (GPT-4o), which makes all of this natural interaction even easier.

We've also seen the same kind of technology demoed on the Rabbit R1 AI device. The idea is that these AIs become less like boxes that you type text into, and more like synthetic people who can see, recognize, and talk.

Based on this teaser, it looks likely that this is the way the Google Gemini AI model and bot is going. While we can't identify the smartphone in the video, it may be that these new features come to Pixel phones (like the new Google Pixel 8a) first.

All will be revealed later today, May 14: everything gets underway at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST, which is May 15 at 3am AEST. We've put together a guide to how to watch Google I/O 2024 online, and we'll be reporting live from the event too.

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Google seems really happy with Circle to Search on its Pixel phones, and just yesterday a group of developers created a version of it for the iPhone as a shortcut. Now, it seems Chrome on desktop will be getting the feature. 

Industry leaker Leopeva64 on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) posted several short clips of a potential Google Lens update for the browser that would allow manual control of the tool.

By clicking a Lens icon in the toolbar, the cursor turns into a cross-shaped reticle with a camera icon in the corner. You can then click and drag it over an item on the screen. Once complete, a window will slide in from the right and display search results relevant to your selected content – presumably.

The demo videos don’t show any search results once the window appears, as it's a work in progress. In fact, the company has been working on this feature since at least March of 2024. Leopeva64 links to previous threads showing how it has transformed over time.

Something you’ll notice from the demos is Chrome takes a notable design cue from Circle to Search on Pixel. Highlighting an object causes the surrounding area to be blurred out, only showing a clear view of what is in the box. Unlike Circle to Search, you won’t be able to draw a circle with a mouse. The videos indicate you may be forced to use a rigid rectangular shape.

Improving old feature

Chrome on desktop technically already has this ability, although it’s not as intuitive. You could, for example, drag a picture to Google Images to look up the subject in the search engine. Or you can select “Search image with Google” in a picture's context menu and have the results show up on the side. These methods are arguably the same thing, but a Circle to Search tool would be easier to use and familiar if you have a Pixel or Galaxy phone.

You won’t have to open another window to upload an image and you can choose what you want to search, rather than making adjustments afterwards.

It’s unknown when Chrome’s Circle to Search (assuming it’ll be called that) will roll out. 9To5Google states the tech giant plans to add more AI tools to their browser “this year.” In a recent interview, Chrome engineering director Adriana Porter Felt says her team is looking for ways to bring AI tech to make everyday tasks like “using Search [and] reading webpages – a little easier”. Leopeva64’s discovery could be a part of this big push.

While we have you, check out TechRadar's roundup of the best Pixel phones for 2024 if you want to upgrade.

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Google is rolling out an update for its Lens camera searching tool that automatically saves a user's visual search history for reference at a later date; think of it like the browsing history option in Chrome but for Lens. 

As 9to5Google reports, this new feature only lets you find visual search history within the Google app on your phone, and it won’t automatically save searches done with more recent tools like the rather nifty Circle to Search. 

For the uninitiated, Google Lens has long been an easy way to point your Android phone’s camera at an object and trigger a Google search for it. All you need to do is find the square-ish icon in the camera option and let the image scan. Google’s machine-learning algorithms will then attempt to identify the object you’ve highlighted and return search results for it, or at least as close as it can get to what you’re viewing. 

In practice, Lens works rather well though there are limitations – it can’t, or won’t, find people, which is probably good in terms of privacy, and it doesn't always get the identification right. But that’s why the ability to save searches may be quite handy. If Lens hasn’t quite worked on, say, a type of chair you’ve pointed it at, you can refer to that search at a later date when you happen to run into your chair-expert friend. 

One thing to bear in mind is that Lens scans an object and then fires it and the relevant data into the cloud, so the search history won’t be saved on the device. Instead, you’ll need to visit myactivity.google.com to access it. It’s also an opt-in feature, meaning you’ll need to access the “Include Visual Search History” option to ensure your Lens searches are saved –  don’t assume Google will do this automatically. You’ll find the option to do this under ‘Data & Privacy’ and then in the ‘Web & App Activity’ section. 

All in all, this might sound like a small update, and it is. But such tweaks help make using machine learning-powered tools more useful and thus prepare us for a future where AI features and options will be more prevalent in some of the best phones. 

While I don’t welcome an age of smart robots enslaving us all, I’m open to having handy AI tools that make getting information a whole lot easier. I’m also waiting to see what Apple could do with generative AI when it comes to the iPhone 16. 

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We've just seen the Samsung Galaxy S24 series unveiled with plenty of AI features packed inside, but Google isn't slowing down when it comes to upgrading its own AI tools – and Google Lens is the latest to get a new feature.

The new feature is actually an update to the existing multisearch feature in Google Lens, which lets you tweak searches you run using an image: as Google explains, those queries can now be more wide-ranging and detailed.

For example, Google Lens already lets you take a photo of a pair of red shoes, and append the word "blue" to the search so that the results turn up the same style of shoes, only in a blue color – that's the way that multisearch works right now.

The new and improved multisearch lets you add more complicated modifiers to an image search. So, in Google's own example, you might search with a photo of a board game (above), and ask "what is this game and how is it played?" at the same time. You'd get instructions for playing it from Google, rather than just matches to the image.

All in on AI

As you would expect, Google says this upgrade is "AI-powered", in the sense that image recognition technology is being applied to the photo you're using to search with. There's also some AI magic applied when it comes to parsing your text prompt and correctly summarizing information found on the web.

Google says the multisearch improvements are rolling out to all Google Lens users in the US this week: you can find it by opening up the Google app for Android or iOS, and then tapping the camera icon to the right of the main search box (above).

If you're outside the US, you can try out the upgraded functionality, but only if you're signed up for the Search Generative Experience (SGE) trial that Google is running – that's where you get AI answers to your searches rather than the familiar blue links.

Also just announced by Samsung and Google is a new Circle to Search feature, which means you can just circle (or scribble on) anything on screen to run a search for it on Google, making it even easier to look up information visually on the web.

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There are few sounds more soul-crushing than Apple’s 'out of charge' AirPods jingle. Have you ever boarded the train to work, mentally prepared for the dopamine rush of that first killer Spotify track (or Apple Music track, if you’re that way inclined), only to discover that you did not, in fact, charge your AirPods the night before? Of course you have. We all have. It sucks.

But what if you never had to worry about your AirPods running out of charge again? Or rather, you always had a way to charge them, wherever you are in the world? Well, dear reader, thanks to the reverse charging capabilities of the iPhone 15, you’re now able to do just that using only a USB-C cable, irrespective of which AirPods you own. 

Of course, you’ll need a USB-C-equipped iPhone 15 to pull off this trick, but if you do own one of Apple’s new best iPhones, you’ll already own the cable needed to reverse charge your AirPods (since the latter come with a USB-C charging cable). In this article, then, we explain how to charge AirPods using an iPhone 15. 

Tools and Requirements

• An iPhone 15
• Apple AirPods (any generation)
• USB-C to USB-C cable or USB-C to Lightning cable

Steps for how to charge AirPods using an iPhone 15

• Plug the USB-C end of the charging cable into your iPhone 15
• Plug the other end into your AirPods
• Keep the two devices connected until the AirPods charging light turns green

Step by step guide

Additional info

Apple hasn’t disclosed the charging speed provided to AirPods via the iPhone 15’s USB-C port, but it’s safe to expect slower speeds than those provided by a bona fide charging block. As such, this on-the-go charging method is best used when your AirPods need a quick top up, rather than a full, 0-100% charge.

Incidentally, you can’t charge your AirPods by placing them on the back of your iPhone 15 (or indeed any iPhone model with MagSafe charging capabilities). Apple has reportedly been working on this feature for years, but it’s not yet available. At present, then, charging your AirPods via USB-C is the best interim solution.

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Be honest: at some point or another, you’ve messaged your mom to ask how best to wash your favorite jumper. Or you’ve called on your dad to help make sense of that pesky warning light on your car dashboard. Yes, 'adulting' can be hard – but your iPhone can now stand in for your parents when domestic life throws a curveball your way.

Visual Look Up is a Google Lens-style, post-processing iOS feature that’s designed to help you identify objects in photos. It debuted as part of iOS 15, and was initially capable of identifying things like animals, paintings, books, and landmarks. TechRadar’s US editor in chief, Lance Ulanoff, has found the feature a useful tool for identifying plants, while others have used Visual Look Up to add their pets to their iPhone’s People gallery.

In iOS 17, though, Visual Look Up can now identify laundry tags and dashboard symbols, making it a much more practical tool for navigating the domestic struggles of everyday life. In this article, then, we detail how to use Visual Look Up on an iPhone, using a laundry tag and a (very cute) dog as example use cases.

Tools and Requirements

• An iPhone running any version of iOS 17
• An internet connection

Steps for how to use Visual Look Up

• Open a photo in full screen
• Select the starred Info button
• Tap Look Up for the identified subject

Step by step guide

Additional info

Apple’s Visual Look Up feature isn’t available in all regions or languages. Currently, it's limited to English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish-speaking countries.

It goes without saying, but Visual Look Up won’t be available for every image, since not every image features an easily-identifiable object or subject. For those images where Visual Look Up isn’t available, the Info button is displayed without stars or symbols.

What's more, Visual Look Up isn't always 100% accurate. As you can see in the image above, Visual Look Up has incorrectly identified Sushi, a Maltese Poodle, as either a Havanese or Bearded Collie.

As well as granting Visual Look Up the ability to identify laundry tags and dashboard symbols, iOS 17 also brings visual changes to the feature. For eligible photos, the “i” symbol is transformed into a plant, dog, laundry basket or monument, depending on what Visual Lookup detects. By contrast, in the iOS 15 and 16 versions of Visual Lookup, the feature can be identified as being available through stars alone.

As we alluded to in the intro to this how to, it’s also worth noting that Visual Look Up – or rather, the functionality it enables – is not limited to iPhones. Google Lens and Samsung's 'Bixby Vision' feature have similar capabilities, and both were released before Visual Look Up.

Google is updating its search engine and Lens tool with new features to help students visualize and solve tricky math problems.

We’re not talking about basic arithmetic either. The upgraded Google Search can now tackle more complex forms of math like calculus and trigonometry. All you have to do is type in the equation or integral  into the text bar at the top or take a picture of your homework with Lens. You’ll then see a series of step-by-step instructions explaining how to solve it with the answer at the bottom. Geometry is also supported with the company recommending people use Google Lens to solve those since they can have diagrams. You won’t be able to draw shapes into the search bar so uploading a photo of the equation is your best bet. 

Additionally, you can type in word problems for physics questions. Google Search will highlight the “known and unknown values” and then show you the correct formula to use for that particular equation. As an example, if you need to find out the average acceleration of a cyclist going down a hill, it’ll tell you the specific kinetic formula needed. 

The math update is currently live on desktop and the mobile app. Google states you can type the phrase “math solver” in the search bar to try out their new experience on desktop. However, when we did, nothing popped up. It's possible this could be referring to future expansion, but we're not sure. Either way, feel free to directly type the math problem into the search bar. You don’t need to bring up anything else.

Advancement in science

Alongside the mathematics help, Google is rolling out interactive 3D models for certain fields of science such as physics, biology, and chemistry. The diagrams will let you zoom into an object as well as provide definitions of what you’re looking at. 

At the time of this writing, the patch doesn’t appear to be widely available. We saw interactive 3D models for basic concepts like individual parts of a cell and periodic elements, but nothing for specific types of cells or molecules. You can look up a model for an oxygen atom, but not a carbon dioxide molecule for instance. What’s more, nothing had a definition. It was just the model.

We reached out to Google asking if this patch is seeing a global release or will only be available in a few countries like the United States. We’ll update this story if we hear back.

Undoubtedly, this will help students advance in their courses. But don't forget about the hardware. If you're in the market for a computer, be sure to check out TechRadar's list of the best student laptops for 2023.

Update 11-4-2023:  A company representative was able to confirm that the math update will be rolling out globally.

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Most of us use Search reflexively, pop into our Gmail fifty times a day, and fall back into the comfortable arms of Google Maps when we're lost. But Google has tons of smaller apps and tools that are equally useful in their own way – so we've gathered our favorite lesser-known treats here to help you discover some new favorites (and also hopefully protect them from the Google graveyard).

Yes, Google's penchant for experiments over the past 25 years – its official 25th birthday is on September 27 – has been a double-edged sword. It rustles up new apps and services like some sort of digital magician, only to make them disappear and leave us crying like children over what's been ruthlessly taken away.

But for now, the Google apps and services below are still going strong – and they're all ones that the TechRadar team likes a lot. You may not, for example, have discovered the stress-lowering power of Family Link, the cerebral wonders of Google Scholar, or the sheer joy that is the Arts & Culture app.

If you haven't, then allow us to explain why you should – and also why we need to put a protective ring-fence around them all to save them from a future visit to Google's guillotine...     

1. Google Arts & Culture app

• Best for: the culturally curious

For me, the Google Arts & Culture app is a glorious rabbit hole that leads to hundreds more rabbit holes. It’s a top recommendation from me if you want to inject some art and culture to stir your thoughts, perhaps over morning coffee or during a work break. Maybe you’re brainstorming ideas and are looking for inspiration. You even get cute little badges the more you explore the site.

Google describes it as its effort to make art and culture from all around the world and from all sorts of time periods available to anyone, anywhere. On the home page, you’ll be met with a whole array of activities you can try – whether it’s just reading a featured article or trying a game. You can dive into an art collection and even check out collections that are near you so you can go in person. 

You can also visit some museums virtually, including beautifully and meticulously captured 360-degree views, and check out their collections that way, using tech similar to Google Street View. If you have a VR headset, there are even augmented reality (AR) experiences you can try. If that's not enough, it's also worth following the Google's official Arts & Culture blog – recent stories include a Leonardo da Vinci feature and four new digital experiments from artists that you can try for yourself.

• Kristina Terech (Computing Writer)

• Download the Google Arts & Culture app (Android)
• Download the Google Arts & Culture app (iOS)

2. Google Family Link

• Best for: busy parents

I wouldn’t say Google Family Link was a better parent than me or my partner, but it was a close-run thing for a time. For the uninitiated, Family Link lets you remotely manage your children’s devices; you can set screen time limits, block access to apps and websites, and generally control what they can get up to online. It’s aimed at under-13s, though you can use it for teens too (just be prepared for arguments if you go down that route). 

And it works brilliantly, taking away some of the stress of parenting in the digital age. Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not a fan of restricting everything my kids do online, as it’s important that they learn about the big wide world web. But being able to set limits for individual apps has been a massive help as my daughters have entered their early teenage years and have finally been allowed on TikTok and Snapchat; without it, I suspect they’d both spend roughly 20 hours a day scrolling through their feeds, rather than the two hours they’re given. 

I also love the Location feature, which shows me where they are – or where their phones are, but that’s always the same thing – on a map; great for peace of mind when they’re out with friends. Surprisingly, my kids like Family Link, too – the internet can be a scary place for kids, but they know it will prevent them from stumbling into the worst corners of the web. They can wait until they’re adults for that.

• Marc McLaren, UK Editor in Chief

• Use Google Family Link

3. Google Keep

• Best for: getting a second brain 

Here are some of the bits I've got in Google Keep: films to watch, song lyrics I like, 5-a-side football attendances, shopping lists, expense tallies, press contacts, my National Insurance number... and that's just a sample. 

The appeal of all these virtual Post-it notes lies in just how many different ways you can use them – and as well as text you can store hand-written scribbles and images as well.

Everything loads up in a flash, syncs seamlessly across any device and the web, and search works perfectly, too – even if you can only remember a fragment of what you've written. You can label notes, attach reminders to them, collaborate on them with other people, and convert them into documents with a click.

• David Nield, freelance contributor

• Download Google Keep (Android)
• Download Google Keep (iOS)

4. Google Scholar

• Best for: backing up your opinions

Google Scholar is a niche, but useful little tool that’s saved me countless hours of wading through dry, dull academic archives. 

Scholar is a subset of Google Search focused on trawling through databases full of academic papers, makes finding peer-reviewed research on any given topic an absolute doddle. It’s very useful for students, I can imagine, but unlike most of its users, I didn’t even touch it until I entered the working world. 

Whenever I write about health or wellness, I find myself needing to consult a bit of science to ensure any point I’m making is backed up with research papers. I’ve been using it for nearly a decade, looking up papers on everything from VO2 Max to VR’s effect on our eyes.

• Matt Evans, Fitness, Wellness & Wearables Editor

• Use Google Scholar

5. Google Flights

• Best for: timing your holidays to perfection  

I've only recently started considering flying abroad again after, well, we all know why. And while I used to rely on comparison engines like Kayak to check prices, I'm now fully on board with Google Flights (with a dash of Chrome extensions like Travel Arrow, which went viral on TikTok recently).

Flights has always been useful for basic price comparisons, but it's stepped up its game recently with an improved Insights tab. Now when you search for flights, you can tap on a blue card below the search box to see some handy data on whether your quoted prices are typical, plus a graph of how the prices have fluctuated over the past couple of months.

Clearly, my lack of planning for a Lisbon trip (above) has cost me dearly, but at least I know the prices aren't extortionate compared to previous years. As always, it's worth going directly to the top airlines in your results to see if there are any special offers there, and comparing the comparison sites with the likes of Travel Arrow. 

Google Flights' handy price tracking feature also works a bit like Google Alerts (see below) for holiday bargain hunters. Use it enough and you'll start to become known as the flights nerd among friends and family – for example, did you know that this year the best time to book Christmas flights is 71 days before departure?

• Mark Wilson, Senior news editor

• Use Google Flights

6. Google Alerts

• Best for: staying in the know

One of Google's lesser-known products, but one I use all the time, is Alerts. As its name suggests, it pings you an email when a keyword or set of keywords appears online. 

It offers plenty of ways to tweak the delivery (frequency, language, location etc). It’s one of those services that ticks in the background and therefore doesn’t get the sort of slick treatment that Google usually applies to more visible ones. 

You can use advanced search operators like on Google Search to filter exactly what sort of content you can get and there’s no limits to the number of alerts you can set either. Sadly, it doesn’t work with YouTube and you still can’t get Bard, Google’s AI butler, to set one up for you. 

Still, like the now-defunct Google RSS Reader, this one has grown on me. Don’t be surprised, though, if Google decides to shun it at some point, consigning it to join the nearly 300 projects that Google has terminated to date.

• Desire Athow (Managing Editor, TechRadar Pro)

• Set up Google Alerts

7. Google Lens

• Best for: searching the real world

Before ChatGPT and Bard… there was Google Lens. Well, sort of. No, it’s not a text-based AI tool like they are, but it was one of the first truly impressive demonstrations of machine learning that I was exposed to. 

Lens is a hard thing to pin down. It’s essentially a visual search tool, but that doesn’t come close to describing everything it can do. Want to know what that plant over there is? Snap a photo with Lens and it will tell you it’s a juniper or whatever. On holiday in Italy and struggling with the menu? Use Lens and it will live-translate the text for you. 

Plus, it’s improved over time: you can now take a photo of text and it will copy it to the clipboard, or snap a barcode and have it return shopping links, or photograph buildings and receive information about them. There’s even a relatively new Homework feature, which will answer questions; I’m not showing this to my kids.

Lens is built into my Pixel 6’s Camera app (it’s also available via the Google Lens app for Android and iOS) and has become just another Google tool that I rarely marvel at as I once did. But then that’s part of its genius. Using it is so simple and seamless that it’s become commonplace for me, despite being a genuinely innovative tool that I’d have dismissed as a work of science-fiction a decade ago. Thanks, Google!

• Marc McLaren, UK Editor in Chief

• Download Google Lens (Android)
• How to use Google Lens on your iPhone or iPad

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Google is not a doctor and certainly not a qualified dermatologist but when I heard that Google Lens now has the ability to help me search for skin conditions based on an image I fed into it, I decided to give it a try.

I should start by admitting that I do not like going to the doctor. I don't care about their specialty, I have the same distaste for dermatologists and podiatrists as I do a general practitioner. It takes a lot for me to visit a doctor, maybe an arm almost completely detached from my body.

Still, I'm older now and I can't really avoid the yearly checkups and colonoscopies. But I've drawn the line at dermatologists who love freezing things off your body and searching every square inch for an angry mole that might be something worse. They do valuable work, but what if there was a way to avoid, maybe for just a little while, marching into that cold, white office for a dermatological audit?

Digital check

In a recent update, Google announced that its popular visual search tool, Lens, could now help you identify possible skin conditions. All you had to do was upload a photo of your own bump, indent, discoloration, or whatever.

I've always liked Lens but often forget to use it. Probably because I spend most of my time with an iPhone and the only way to access Google Lens there is through the Google App. This new feature, though, caught my attention. I could immediately think of two or more skin things I was curious about. Whenever I mention them to my wife, she immediately says, "I have a dermatologist appointment next week. Why don't you piggyback on it?" I nod and then immediately hope she forgets about the conversation.

These one or two skin tags have not changed in ages, which I know is a decent sign I shouldn't worry but I can only feel and not see them. I wasn't inclined to show them to anyone and ask what they thought. Google Lens seemed like the perfect impersonal middleman.

Now, before you get totally freaked out, my test mole (or whatever) is on my side, parallel to my stomach, but just close enough to my back that I can not turn my head far enough around to see it.

To feed an image to Google Lens, I'd need to take a picture and upload it. This entailed holding my iPhone 14 Pro so the camera was positioned about 8 inches away from the mole and then pressing the phone's down volume button to take a picture. It took about six attempts to get this right. I then cropped the image so that the mole, which looked super average, was positioned right in the middle.

Next, I opened the Google App and selected the Lens icon (it sits to the right of the Google Assistant icon). This opened up the Google Lens interface. It also offers the ability to take a photo right there but since I'd have to use the on-screen camera icon (I could not position the phone and properly touch the screen at the same time), I opted to stick with the photo I already had.

I selected the photo from the gallery below the camera interface and instantly had my results. At the very top was the reminder from Google that, "Search results are informational only and not a diagnosis. Consult your medical authority for advice." Fine. Everyone wants me to go to a doctor.

Below that I had six side-scrolling skin condition photos and descriptions including Seborrheic Keratosis and Melanocytic nevis. Below that were more visual matches that actually looked closer to what I now believe is a very ordinary skin tag.

As I said, I'm no doctor, nor is Google. But this little bit of information seems useful.  I wonder, though, what Google might do with my skin photo. Is that forever in its cloud and might it someday be used to match with other people's skin condition? My guess is Google discards it because there's no other identifying information or conclusive diagnosis. 

In the end, I still have to go to the dermatologist but maybe when I get there I'll be a little less apprehensive about what she might find.

Update 6-22-2023: Got some clarity from Google on what they will or won't do with our skin images:

• Lens can be used without signing into any account
• Lens does not save users’ photos by default
• Users can always opt to share their photos with Lens to provide feedback to Google and help improve the product

Google Lens has long been a powerful party trick for anyone who needs to identify a flower or translate their restaurant menu, but it's about to jump to the next level with some Bard integration that's rolling out "in the coming weeks".

Google teased its tag-team pairing of Lens and Bard at Google IO 2023, but it's now given us an update on how the combo will work and when it's coming. In a new blog post, Google says that within weeks you'll be able to "include images in your Bard prompts and Lens will work behind the scenes to help Bard make sense of what’s being shown".

The example that Google has shared is a shopping-based one. If you have a photo of a new pair of shoes that you've been eyeing up for a vacation, you can ask Bard what they're called and, unlike standard Lens, start grilling Bard for ideas on how you should style the new shoes.

Naturally, the Lens-Bard combo will be able to do more than just offer shopping advice, with huge potential for travel advice, education, and more. For example, imagine being able to ask a Lens-powered Bard to not only name a holiday landmark but build you a good day trip itinerary around it.

This isn't the end of Google Lens' new tricks, either. It's also tentatively jumping into the health space with a new feature that helps you identify any skin conditions that have been nagging you (below). To use the new feature, Google says you can "just take a picture or upload a photo through Lens, and you’ll find visual matches to inform your search". 

It can apparently also help identify other nagging issues like "a bump on your lip, a line on your nails, or hair loss on your head". Naturally, these won't be proper diagnoses of conditions, but they could be a start of a conversation with your doctor. 

If you aren't familiar with Google Lens, it's pretty easy to find on Android – it'll either be built into your camera app or you can just download the standalone Lens app from the App Store. On iPhone, you'll find Lens within the official Google app instead.

Next-gen Lens

The budding Google Lens and Bard partnership could be a match made in search heaven, given that Lens is the most powerful visual search tool around and Bard is improving by the week. And that combo could be a powerful alternative to ChatGPT.

ChatGPT itself has basic image recognition powers and Microsoft did recently bring AI-powered image recognition to its Bing search engine. But the integration of the two isn't quite as powerful as the incoming Lens-Bard integration, at least from what we've seen from Google's demos.

Unfortunately, Google's extreme tentativeness around Bard (which is still labeled an 'experiment') means we might not see its full potential for a while. For example, the huge potential power of this Lens and Bard combination will be limited by the fact that there's still no Google Bard mobile app.

Google could change its stance in the future, but right now we're limited to using Bard in our web browsers – and that's far less convenient for visual search than scanning the world with a smartphone and its built-in camera.

So while the integration of powerful Google apps like Lens with Bard has massive potential for how we search the world for info, ChatGPT will rest a little safer in the knowledge that Google is taking a glacial approach to unleashing its full AI-powered potential.

According to a new 9To5Google report, Google is working on a way to combine a number of its search technologies and possibly even AI into a new tool that’s been dubbed ‘Search Companion’.

It is said to leverage Lens, which allows users to search the Internet with image inputs rather than text, in order to pull more context from a web page.

Speculation suggests that a new Search Companion window may be housed in a sidebar in the company’s popular web browser, which accounts for two-thirds (66%) of all desktop browsing sessions (via Statcounter).

Google Chrome Search Companion

Taking a look at the code, it seems that Search Companion will be able to pinpoint certain types of data about a web page such as its title and other types of metadata to determine what it is you’re looking at.

It will also use Lens to scan for images on the page to add more context to the information it collects.

The so-called companion will likely then surface related information that the user may want, helping to make browsing the web and jumping between pages more efficient. If an individual is looking at a product, for example, then Chrome may suggest deals or tech spec pages to facilitate your research efforts.

This all comes at a time when Microsoft is funneling AI like ChatGPT into its own browser - Edge - and Google is exploring its own place in artificial intelligence. Whether Search Companion will make use of Google’s Bard, or even exist at all, is uncertain, as Google has not yet made an official announcement about the upcoming project, but it’s clear that work is well underway to refine and improve the company’s search engine experience.

Via 9To5Google

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Google announced a suite of AI-powered upgrades to its Search, Maps and Lens services during its recent Paris showcase, with Lens set to benefit from a particularly useful new feature in the coming months.

Soon, Google Lens users on Android will be able to search for what they see in photos and videos through Google Assistant alone. The integration will work across myriad websites and apps, and allow people to learn more about information contained within images – think building names, food recipes or car models – without having to navigate away from those images. As Google explained in its Paris presentation, "if you can see it, you can search it".

Confused? Check out the latest Google Lens update in action via the tweet below, which shows a user identifying Luxembourg Palace through a friend’s video of the landmark. 

Google hasn’t yet offered a date for the new feature’s arrival, though the company has promised to roll out the upgrade “in the coming months” (which, for our money, likely means February or March 2023). 

Significant improvements are heading to Google’s Multisearch feature, too. The ability to add a text query to Lens searches is now available globally in all supported languages and countries, and Google is also introducing the ability to find different variations (for example, shape and color) of objects captured through Lens. 

As Google explained in Paris: “For example, you might be searching for ‘modern living room ideas’ and see a coffee table that you love, but you’d prefer it in another shape – say, a rectangle instead of a circle. You’ll be able to use Multisearch to add the text ‘rectangle’ to find the style you’re looking for.” See the feature in action below:

A new era of search? 

Elsewhere during Google’s recent showcase, the company announced a host of AI-powered updates for Google Search and Google Maps. 

For instance, Google will soon be integrating its "experimental conversational AI service,” Bard, into Search to offer users more accurate and convenient search results. As Google explained in Paris, you'll soon be able to ask questions like, "what are the best constellations to look for when star-gazing?”, and then dig deeper into what time of year is best to see them through helpful AI suggestions. 

The move follows Microsoft’s announcement of a redesigned, AI-powered Bing search engine that uses the same technology as ChatGPT. 

As for Google Maps, the service’s Immersive View feature – which lets you virtually tour landmarks – is getting a significant upgrade in five major cities across the globe, while its Live View feature – which uses your phone’s camera to help you explore a city through a neat AR overlay – is set for similar expansion. 

We’ll be testing all of the above features for ourselves in the coming months, but for a whistle-stop rundown of everything else announced at Google’s Paris showcase, head over to our Google 'Live from Paris' liveblog. 

Google’s engineers must’ve been hungry when designing these latest updates, as Google Lens is getting a feast of new features that make it easier to find delicious-looking food.

Google Lens is Google’s picture-based search tool that allows you to use images instead of text; you can snap a picture or screenshot something and search for similar-looking images on the web (it's Ctrl + F for the real world). Beyond that Google, Lens can also scan text in the image, letting you search what a written phrase means, look up help for your homework or translate some text.

Being able to look up what something is using a picture is certainly helpful, but if you’re like us you don’t just want to know what a delicious-looking meal is called, you need to know where you can go to munch on it right away. Well, the Google Lens Multisearch 'near me' feature allows you to search using a snapped picture of a food item, and then add a 'near me' tag to find a list of nearby locations that serve that food. 

As seen in the example above, rather than trying to deduce what the treats are by googling 'jam-filled cookies,' the person was able to snap a pic to find out that they’re Linzer Augen. Then by tapping the search bar at the top they added 'near me' to discover close-by bakeries and restaurants that said they serve the treat.

But just because you know what Linzer Augen is and where to find it, you might not be able to eat it – if it's made with almonds and you have a nut allergy, the cookies could cause you serious trouble. So, when you search for food near you (like soup dumplings as seen in the example below) in Lens or regular Google Search, you can find out additional information about the treat you want to eat.

This includes information about ingredients, how spicy the food is, and if it’s vegetarian or vegan – you can even filter the results so you only see nearby options that meet your requirements.

These new tools should be available in Google Lens – both the Android and iOS versions of the app – and Google Search right now (they launched on November 17). However, for now, they’re restricted to users and restaurants in the US, which is often the case for new Google features. So if you live somewhere else, or are traveling abroad, you won’t be able to rely on these new tools right away; we expect they’ll be rolled out to other regions in the not-too-distant future.

Fashion with function

Another new feature, which is now available worldwide, is Lens’s AR translation update.

AR translation does what it sounds like – you can take a snap of some written text, and your smartphone is able to translate it to the language of your choice. It’s probably the Google Lens feature we rely on most as it works pretty well – it’s not always perfect, but the translation is almost always good enough for you to get the gist of what a sign or menu is saying.

This latest improvement won’t make the translations more accurate; instead, it’ll improve how they look on the image you take. Normally Google Lens will block out the original writing and superimpose the translation on top, but this can look fairly ugly – especially if there’s a beautiful background underneath.

The new change to Lens allows the app to erase the original text rather than covering it up, reconstruct the background using AI, and then place the translation on top, making it look more like it’s meant to be there. If you’re a restaurant owner who wants to create a quick translation of your lovingly designed menu for foreign guests, or a foodie who wants to share the translated menu online so other people know what to expect, this tool should help make your translations look a lot nicer.

Google Lens already has lots of fancy AR tricks up its sleeve, but it'll soon get what might be its most useful feature yet, called Scene Exploration.

At Google I/O 2022, Google previewed the new feature, which it says acts as a 'Ctrl+F' shortcut for finding things in the world in front of you. Hold your phone's camera up to a scene, and Google Lens will soon be able to overlay useful information on top of products to help you make quick choices.

Google's example demo of the feature was shelves of candy bars, which Lens overlaid with information including not just the type of chocolate (for example, dark) but also their customer rating.

In theory, this Google Lens feature could be super-powerful and a big time-saver, particularly for shopping. And Google says it runs on some smart real-time tech, including knowledge graphs that crunch together multiple streams of info to give you local tips.

The downside? Scene Exploration doesn't yet have a release date, with Google saying it's coming "in the future", with no precise timescale. This means it could be one to file next to Google Lens's earliest promises, which took a few years to mature. But it doesn't look like a huge leap from Lens's existing shopping tools, so we're hoping to see the first signs of it sometime this year. 

Analysis: one of AR's most useful tricks so far

There's no doubt that Scene Exploration mode has massive potential for shopping, with old-school browsing in shops likely to increasingly take place from behind a phone screen – or perhaps ultimately, smart glasses.

But Google says it also has more benevolent applications. The feature could apparently help conservationists identify plant species that are in danger of extinction, or give volunteers a handy way to sort through donations.

Either way, it's certainly looks like a powerful and intuitive development of another Lens feature that Google announced at I/O 2022, called Multi-Search. This allows you to combine image search with a keyword to help you find obscure products or objects, without needing to know their name.

Multi-Search arrived in Google Search last month (check in the Search app on Android or iOS), and you'll soon be able to use a more specific version called 'Near Me'. Google's example was taking a photo of a certain dish, and then being able to search local restaurants that serve that particular food.

You could argue that these kinds of features are turning us all into idiots, helplessly reliant on the crutch of Google's powerful Lens and Search tech. But features like Scene Exploration and Multi-Search do look like some of the most useful examples of AR we've seen, and their versatility should prove a boon for all kinds of users.

Now all we have to do is wait to see how long they take to fully materialize on Google Lens.

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Google searches are about to get even more precise with the introduction of multisearch, a combination of text and image searching with Google Lens. 

After making an image search via Lens, you’ll now be able to ask additional questions or add parameters to your search to narrow the results down. Google’s use cases for the feature include shopping for clothes with a particular pattern in different colors or pointing your camera at a bike wheel and then typing “how to fix” to see guides and videos on bike repairs. According to Google, the best use case for multisearch, for now, is shopping results. 

The company is rolling out the beta of this feature on Thursday to US users of the Google app on both Android and iOS platforms. Just click the camera icon next to the microphone icon or open a photo from your gallery, select what you want to search, and swipe up on your results to reveal an “add to search” button where you can type additional text.

This announcement is a public trial of the feature that the search giant has been teasing for almost a year; Google discussed the feature when introducing MUM at Google I/O 2021, then provided more information on it in September 2021. MUM, or Multitask Unified Model, is Google’s new AI model for search that was revealed at the company’s I/O event the same year. 

MUM replaced the old AI model, BERT; Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. MUM, according to Google, is around a thousand times more powerful than BERT.

Analysis: will it be any good?

It’s in beta for now, but Google sure was making a big hoopla about MUM during its announcement. From what we’ve seen, Lens is usually pretty good at identifying objects and translating text. However, the AI enhancements will add another dimension to it and could make it a more useful tool for finding the information you need about what you're looking at right now, as opposed to general information about something like it.

It does, though, beg the questions about how good it’ll be at specifying exactly what you want. For example, if you see a couch with a striking pattern on it but would rather have it as a chair, will you be able to reasonably find what you want? Will it be at a physical store or at an online storefront like WayFair? Google searches can often get inaccurate physical inventories of nearby stores, are those getting better, as well?

We have plenty of questions, but they’ll likely only be answered once more people start using multisearch. The nature of AI is to get better with use, after all.

Although Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone, Google has highlighted several new features in Chrome designed to make your last minute holiday shopping easier.

According to a new blog post, these features will make it easier to keep track of price drops, search for deals, manage items in your shopping cart and simplify the checkout process when using the search giant's browser on your mobile devices.

If you're waiting on a good deal for an item but don't want to constantly keep refreshing a page, Chrome for Android now allows you to see an item's updated price right in your open tabs grid. This means you can leave the page for an item you want to buy open in Google's browser and easily see when its price has dropped. While this feature is now available for Chrome on Android in the US, it will be launching on iOS in the coming weeks.

Have you ever spotted an interesting item while window shopping and wanted to learn more about it? Now you can search your surroundings with Google Lens in Chrome on Android to do just that. From the address bar of Google's browser, you can now tap on the Lens icon to start searching with your camera. It's also worth noting that this feature will soon be available in Chrome for desktop. When it launches, you'll be able to right-click on an image and select the “Search images with Google Lens” option to learn more about a product.

Shopping carts, passwords and checkout

Sometimes we add items to our shopping carts for later and lose track of them which is why Google has added a new feature to Chrome that allows you to quickly rediscover the items in your shopping carts across multiple online stores.

Beginning with Chrome on Windows and Mac in the US, users can now open up a new tab and scroll to the “Your carts” card to quickly see any site where you've previously added items to a shopping cart. At the same time, some retailers like Zazzle, iHerb, Electronic Express and Homesquare might even offer a discount when you come back to check out.

Keeping track of all the logins and passwords for various online stores can be a pain which is why you can use Chrome's built-in password manager to store and access them instead. Finally, by saving your address and payment information with Autofill, Chrome can automatically fill out your billing and shipping details to make online shopping even easier.

Whether you're already finished with all of your holiday shopping or just looking for some last-minute gifts, Chrome's new shopping features can help you make sure you've crossed off everyone on your list this year.

We've also rounded up the best shopping cart software, best ecommerce platforms and best browsers

Over the past year and a half, consumers have started shopping online more than ever before and many of their searches begin on Google which is why the search giant has announced that it's adding new ways to find shopping inspiration across its products.

Since inspiration can strike at any time from an image you see online to a photo saved on your smartphone or even from something in the real world that catches your eye, the company is adding new features to Google Lens that make products users see instantly shoppable.

Beginning soon, iOS users will see a new button in the Google app that makes all of the images on a page searchable through Google Lens. This will make finding a product you see online in a picture, just a tap away. 

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Google is also making it easier to shop for products from photos on your computer by bringing Lens to Chrome on your desktop. Users will soon be able to select images, video and text content on a website with Lens to quickly see search results in the same tab without having to leave the page they're currently on.

Window shopping and in-store inventory

Beginning today, Google is making it easier to browse for clothing, shoes and accessories on mobile right from its search results.

Now when a user searches for “jean jackets”, the company's search engine will show a visual feed of jackets in various colors and styles alongside other helpful information such as local shops, style guides and videos. Users will also be able to filter their search by style, department, brand and more and when they find something they like, they can check out ratings, reviews and even compare prices to get the best deal. This new experience is powered by Google's Shopping Graph which is a comprehensive, real-time dataset of products, inventory and merchants with more than 24bn listings.

As shoppers are increasingly beginning their in-person shopping experiences online, Google is also adding a new feature that allows them to find local stores that carry the products they want right from Google Search. Beginning today, when users look for products online even from a specific brand, they can select the “in stock” filter to see only the nearby stores that have them on their shelves. This feature will likely benefit small businesses as it can help them attract new local customers.

Google's new shopping features will make it even easier for users to find what they're looking for both online and in-person ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

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Google has announced that it’s bringing its Lens feature to Google Chrome in the coming weeks, which allows you to easily discover more information on the web page you’re browsing.

Web browsers have become more important in the daily lives of their users lately due to the pandemic, so developers are bringing ever more innovative and eye-catching features to them, from RGB lighting in Opera’s GX browser, to a new look for Apple’s Safari browser.

However, Google Lens has been a useful feature to many people who use Chrome on their smartphones, allowing users to discover more information about images and translate text on the fly.

With this now arriving in Google Chrome on the desktop, it’s a feature that could tempt others to move away from their other web browser of choice.

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What is Google Lens?

Launched in 2017, Google Lens allows you to point a smartphone camera at certain objects, and Lens would be able to copy text that’s visible in the image, for example, or translate any signs that’re in another language if you were abroad.

Eventually, it was baked into the Camera app on Android, and it’s also available to use on the Google app on iOS.

It’s a feature that’s always been well received, thanks in part to its reliability when scanning images and text, and now the same can be done via Google Chrome.

According to Google’s tweet, you’ll soon be able to activate Lens through one button, which will scan any part of a web page that you select, and then show the results in a sidebar on the right. 

This looks to be appearing on all platforms that you can use Chrome on, such as Windows, macOS, and Google Chromebooks running ChromeOS.

Analysis: say what you see

With Apple’s latest software updates introducing its own take on Google Lens in the form of LiveText, it made sense for Google to bring Lens to its other apps.

It’s always been a useful feature - when I was last on holiday in Spain, I would use it to decipher a menu in a restaurant, and this was followed by me using the translate feature to make sure the waiter knew what I wanted to order.

Now that it’s in Google Chrome, it could find a new audience of users who may never have been aware of Lens, possibly due to not using an Android device or the Google app on iOS. 

Having it on the toolbar beside the address bar will give users the push to try it out, and it could give Google more ideas for new features to Lens in the future.

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Google Lens is a great way to search the web from your mobile. Rather than using keywords to home in on what you're looking for, a quick photo snapped on your camera is all it takes to search for a pair of shoes, or to quickly identify an unknown plant in your garden.

But the tool is even more versatile than that. It can also be used to translate signs and other text in foreign languages, solve mathematical formulae, or just copy large sections of a printed text to save having to type it by hand.

Now Google is bringing a Lens-powered options to Chrome on the desktop, turbocharging searches with completely new options.

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The new feature lets you harness the power of Google Lens and use it to search the web for a section of a website. It can be used to search for images, text, and more, as we will come to shortly. But there is something to get out of the way first.

There are a couple of hoops you need to jump through before you can take advantage of the new search features Google has added to Chrome.

First of all, you need to make use you are running the latest Canary build of Chrome. Secondly, you will need to tweak a setting as the feature is not enabled by default:

1. Launch Chrome Canary and visit chrome://flags
2. Search for Enable Lens Region Search
3. Use the drop-down menu to select Enabled
4. Restart Chrome

Life through a lens

With this done, you can access the new search tool by simply right clicking on a pages. In the context menu, you should see a new Search Part of the page with Google Lens option. This is your entry point to searching.

The next thing you will need to do is to draw a box around the portion of the current pages that you would like to use as the basis for a search – just like using the selection tool in an image editor. You can draw around an image on the page to find other instances – or similar images – elsewhere online, or you can select text to save having to type. Experiment and see what works for you.

Analysis: Deja Vu?

If this idea sounds familiar, it might be because it is not a million miles remove from the "Search with Screenshot" option that can be found in Microsoft Edge.

Which you prefer is really a matter of taste, and the differences between the two are not really great enough to convince any Edge users to switch to Chrome or vice versa.

At the moment, Google's implementation seems a little unstable, but this is not entirely surprising as we're looking at the unreleased Canary build of Chrome. It's hard to imagine that Google won't improve things dramatically before the wider rollout later in the year. With Lens proving to be a popular and powerful option for mobile users, it's great to see that Google is giving desktop users a look in, providing access to very similar tools without the need for a camera.

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Via Techdows

Google Lens is that rare beast – an exciting Google innovation that, rather than exploding onto the scene before quietly fizzling out (see Killed by Google), has steadily grown into a quietly useful tool that should definitely be part of your phone ninja skillset.

Not familiar with its powers? The simplest definition of Google Lens is that it's a search engine for the real world – rather than typing your query into a box, you use your phone's camera to scan an object, building or scene, and Lens will use image recognition tech to tell you more about it.

But it also does a lot more than that – and as we discovered in a fascinating chat with Google Lens guru Lou Wang (official job title: Director of Product Management), it's only just getting started. This is good news because a familiar arrival, Apple, just pitched up right next to it.

At WWDC 2021 this week, Apple announced two new iOS 15 features – 'Live Text' and 'Visual Look Up' – that are effectively its version of Google Lens. A common refrain with Apple, true or not, is that it arrives fashionably late to technologies with refined versions of ideas that have been test-driven by someone else. 

But is that the case with Google Lens, and what does Google think of Apple's strangely familiar take on visual search? More importantly, when are we going to see Lens make the leap to smart glasses? Here's what Google's Lou Wang told us in a chat that weaved through next-gen walking tours, the privacy concerns of visual search, and unusual uses for Google Lens in bars.

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Fast learner

Google Lens was launched back in 2017, but has its roots in an older (and now retired) app called Google Goggles. Four years is a long time in tech and Google Lens' powers have, quietly but steadily, grown since Lou Wang started working on the project at its inception.

"When we first started, we were very simple. For example, we could read text from the physical world. But we've come a really long way in the time between then and now," he told us. What's fueled that growth? "It's based on a few things. One is just machine learning and AI, which is something that Sundar [Pichai, Google CEO] talks about a lot. Even our ability to have hardware that can actually process this information has continued to grow in leaps and bounds," he added.

"When we launched, we said ‘we can understand millions of objects’. And after a year and a half, we were at ‘oh, now we can understand a billion objects’. And then two years from there we were at 15 billion," he said. "The usage that we’ve seen from lens has grown from essentially zero to now about 3 billion times a month, and it's continuing to grow."

That's a lot of people, considering that holding up a phone camera to search the real world still isn't something that comes naturally to most of us. The lack of any real rivals to Google Lens has helped, of course, so what does Google think of Apple's new take on visual search?

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How 'bout them Apples?

"The team definitely looked at it and were like 'this UI looks super-familiar'. Like the ability to highlight the text directly on the screen, being able to translate, being able to search for these things," he said, referring to the new iOS 15 features that Apple announced at WWDC 2021 this week.

But in true diplomatic style, Lou Wang said that Apple's belated arrival in visual search could be a good thing for Google Lens. "It's actually great to see Apple embracing a lot of the things that we've been doing. I think it's a sign that everybody is recognizing that the ability to understand text, the ability to understand things from images, is just a necessary and really useful feature," he said.

Apple's new iOS 15 tools aren't there yet, though. Google Lens' signature party trick – and one that made early adopters look like street magicians to their uninitiated friends – is doing live translations that use AR to change real-world text (for example, a restaurant menu) using your phone's camera. And it's these kinds of things where Google Lens still has a significant edge.

"We've been working on it [Lens] for a very long time. And there are definitely things that we still find very exciting – for example, for translate, we do ‘in-painting’ with some of the AR effects directly on the images themselves," Lou Wang said. "That type of experience is very helpful in terms of contextualizing what text belongs to what part of the image. Because images are not just a block of text. Being able to understand the spatial relationship of some of the things that you're doing in translation is really important and useful," he said.

"I think that today, you know what was announced yesterday [at WWDC 2021], that’s something they haven’t quite covered on the Apple side,” he added. Yet it does feel like Apple's approach, which is done on-device rather than using the cloud, is fundamentally different to Google's. Is that fair, and what does Google say to those who are worried about the privacy aspects of visual search?

"It’s likely so, but our fundamental approach is 'how do we make the best results available to the user', while still ensuring privacy," he said. "For example, we do hit the cloud for some of these results because you just generate much more useful features for the user. But the images are actually never viewable by humans," Lou Wang added.

AR-tinted glasses

While Google Lens has indeed come a long way, it also feels like there's a lot of untapped potential. For example, Google recently announced that it was doing real-world walking tours in UK cities to promote the global rollout of the new Google Lens 'Places' filter.

Surely Google has the data and tech to create city tours with audio commentaries and AR overlays that don't require human guides? "It’s one of the things that we have talked about and considered," Lou Wang admitted. "As more travel picks up again, I think we’ll see more opportunities where we can start blending in these types of experiences," he added. Just imagine AR movie scenes overlaid on their real-world locations as you walk past them – that's top of our list, anyway.

There is one final big barrier to Google Lens reaching what is surely its final form, though. Despite some much-improved usability – Pixel owners can, for example, start a Google Lens search by simply doing a long-press inside the default camera app – there's still the fundamental friction of having to hold up your phone to a scene or object.

The inevitable question, then, is will Google Lens be coming to smart glasses anytime soon? "To me that is definitely something that’s going to happen – at what timeframe, I think that’s anyone's guess at this point," said Lou Wang. "I do think this notion of ‘I've looked at this thing and I want to know what it is’ is a very natural human need. And so anything that reduces the barriers of doing that is going to be useful."

Google would appear to be in the box-seat for delivering the hardware needed to make this happen, given it already makes the Google Glass Enterprise Edition for businesses. But when it comes to the trickier challenge of making consumer AR glasses that don't look like a pair of comedy jumbo sunnies, Apple could beat it to the punch with the long-rumored Apple Glasses. That said, rumors suggest these might not arrive until 2022 or even 2023.

• Your iPhone will soon get Apple's answer to Google Lens

Lens flair

For now, then, Google will be focusing on making Google Lens as useful as possible within the confines of your phone's screen. And that includes adapting it to suit a world where people have virtually stopped traveling beyond their hometown.

Presumably Google has noticed some big changes in the way people have been using Lens over the last year? "You're totally right, some of our travel traffic has gone down a lot. International travel and things like that were non-existent for a while across the world," said Lou Wang.

But Google Lens is versatile tool and the use of its Translate function is, in particular, on the rise. Away from travel, it's apparently become an ally for students in countries like India and Indonesia, who need to translate English homework. "What we have seen is these types of usage and particularly around schoolwork – you can imagine that more and more schoolwork is becoming digital and people are working from home and going to school from home. That usage has really, really increased."

How about unusual uses for Google Lens? This kind of technology can often take on a life of its own and Google has come across a few more left-field cases. One user was apparently able to help a bartender research their family history – after finding out that an old army badge behind the bar belonged to their grandfather, they used Lens to help them pinpoint the exact infantry unit.

But perhaps the most interesting upcoming feature, particularly for fans of AR games like Pokemon Go, is that Google has created what its calls "a unique gamified scavenger hunt experience", which will be launching in early July. 

While Google Lens' most useful tricks remain more humdrum – for example, quickly copying router passwords or settling arguments on tree species – it's these more frivolous experiences that will help introduce more people to the idea of scanning the real world with their phones. At least, until we finally get to try those long-awaited Lens-branded smart glasses.  

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Perhaps sensing our nationwide itch to do some urban exploration again, Google has announced three real-world walking tours to celebrate the arrival of a new Google Lens filter.

The three free tours, which will take place in Bristol, Liverpool and London next week, will be hosted by some eminent guides, who'll take you to some points of interest that'll no doubt be custom-made for the Google Lens 'Places' filter.

If you're not familiar with Google Lens, it's an image recognition tool that lets you 'search' real world objects and landmarks using your phone's camera. The new 'Places' filter has been gradually appearing on more phones since last year, but is now getting an official global rollout.

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So when and where are these 'Behind the Lens with Google Pixel' tours? On June 14 in Bristol, TV gardening duo The Rich Brothers (of 'Garden Rescue' fame) will be guiding followers around the city's horticultural gems – and no doubt encouraging you to identify a Poison Hemlock with your phone.

Over in Liverpool on June 16, the chef and broadcaster Andi Oliver will be on hand to take you around the city's culinary delights, and perhaps introduce you to some hidden gems to book this summer.

And for the final 'rediscovery tour' on June 23, the French-born maître d Fred Sirieix (from 'First Dates') is promising to take you on what Google says will be 'unique walking tour of London' to romantic spots throughout the city. 

You don't necessarily need a Google Pixel phone to join the tours, but an Android or iOS phone with access to Google Lens is a bonus. If you're new to Google's nifty AR tech, check out our guide to using Google Lens or, for those on iOS, our pointers on how to use Google Lens on iPhone or iPad.

The new Lens 'Places' filter can be found in the 'modes' menu at the bottom of the screen – hold your phone up to a landmark, and it'll label it before bringing up a card with extra info, as you can see below.

How to sign up for the free Google Lens tours

You can register for a place on any of the Google Lens tours in Bristol, Liverpool or London today for free, although you may want to be quick as numbers are limited.

Just head to these Eventbrite links for the Bristol Rediscovery Tour, Liverpool Rediscovery Tour and London Rediscovery Tour, and hit the register button to get your spot (or spots).

Google said it chose these particular tours because recent Google Trends data (from 23 March – 12 April) has shown we're particularly craving hiking and walking, alongside gardening and cooking courses.

This new ‘Behind the Lens with Google Pixel’ push is interesting timing, as Apple recently announced some features in iOS 15, including 'Live Text' and 'Visual Look Up', that help it rival Google Lens,

It's early days for Apple's equivalent, though, and it doesn't yet appear to overlay information on real-world objects and locations to the extent of Google Lens. Apple's language support is also limited compared to its Google rival, which remains the best tool for the kind of live translations we'll need when we get traveling outside of the UK. For now, though, Google's UK city walking tours could do the trick. 

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Google Lens has slowly become one of the most useful augmented reality apps around, so Apple has decided build its own rival into iOS 15.

At WWDC 2021, Apple announced that 'Live Text' and 'Visual Look Up' will be coming to the iPhone's camera and Photos app as part of iOS 15. And both are direct rivals to Google Lens, which has become an increasingly powerful way to search the real world through your smartphone camera on both Android and iOS.

While we've already seen something similar on Android phones, 'Live Text' looks like it'll be a handy way for iPhone users turn copy handwritten or printed text from the real world into digital text. Apple says it's based on 'deep neural networks' that use on-device processing, rather than a cloud-based approach.   

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The example Apple showed was notes on an office whiteboard – you'll be able to tap a new icon in the bottom-right corner of the Camera app's viewfinder, then just use Apple's usual text selection gestures (dragging your finger over the text) to copy the handwritten text into an email or the Notes app.

You'll also be to use 'Live Text' on existing photos in your library, although these use cases look slightly less useful. Apple's examples were copying the name and phone number of a restaurant in the background of an old photo, but perhaps some more interesting uses for the tech will materialize when it's out in the real world.

Apple's 'Live Text' is naturally a lot more limited than Google Lens, given the latter has been out since 2017. Right now, Apple says it only understands seven languages (English, Chinese, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese), which pails in comparison by Google Lens' ability to translate words into over 100 languages.

This means one of Google Lens' more useful tricks – live translating restaurant menus or signs when you're traveling – won't quite be matched by Apple's 'Live Text' right now. But it's a useful new trick for Apple's Camera app all the same and works across all types of photos, including screenshots and photos on the web.

Searching the real world

In a similar vein, Apple's new 'Visual Look Up' is another direct challenge to some of the main features of Google Lens.

While it wasn't shown in great depth during WWDC 2021, the feature will apparently let you automatically look up information in your photos, like the breed of a dog or the type of flower you snapped.

According to Apple, this will work for books, art, nature, pets and landmarks, although exactly how exhaustive its knowledge is remains to be seen. It'll certainly be tricky for it to compete with Google on this front, given the mountains of data the search giant is able to glean from its other services.

But while this feature will probably be a little limited initially, it seems likely that this move is related to augmented reality and, perhaps ultimately, the rumored Apple Glasses. Automatically identifying visual information, like landmarks, is likely to be an important component of any smart glasses, so 'Visual Look Up' could be considered another important step towards some Apple face furniture.

'Visual Look Up' will apparently also work across iPhone, iPad and Mac, so it'll be baked into whatever Apple device you're using, as long as it's updated to the latest software. You can expect the full release of iOS 15 to arrive in around mid-September.

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Taking a moment to figure out how to use Google Lens on your iPhone or iPad is going to be well worth your time, because this image recognition tool is going to make your life a whole lot easier. 

Since its launch back in 2017, Google Lens has become one of our favorite AI-powered technology tools. Using your smartphone camera and deep machine learning, Google Lens can translate text, help you to identify plants, and find answers to equations – pretty cool, huh?

One of the best Android apps by far, Google Lens is also available on iOS devices, and is incredibly easy to install. Whether you have the best iPad or the best iPhone, you'll find Google Lens works beautifully on both. 

Alongside the features mentioned above, Google Lens is also fantastic when you're out shopping. See a pair of shoes that you like? Google Lens will instantly identify them, (as well as provide you with suggestions for similar items), and give you access to reviews where available. So, you’ll have all that information in the palm of your hand before you decide whether or not to head to the checkout.

Plus, it's a total lifesaver when you're traveling. You'll find Google Lens is able to identify buildings and landmarks, pulling up directions for you in a split second, alongside opening hours so you don't make a wasted trip. It can even recognize restaurants and cafes, so you can read the reviews from across the street before you approach the door.

Now that we've got you all excited, we know you'll be eager to find out how to use Google Lens on your iPhone or iPad. Here's everything you need to know to make installing and using this powerful tool a piece of cake...

How to install Google Lens on an iPhone or iPad

Google Lens doesn’t have its own dedicated app on the App Store. Instead, its functionality is baked into two different Google apps. Which one is the best for you will depend on how you plan to use Google Lens, and on which device.

How to use Google Lens in real-time on your iPhone

How to use Google Lens on photos in your iPhone or iPad camera roll

Sometimes you might need the skills of Google Lens at a later date. Say, for example, that you spot a mysterious plant when you don’t have a good data signal, or you take a photo of your food at a restaurant, but don’t then want to spend time looking at your phone because you're in company. 

You can easily use Google Lens to search with photos saved to your iPhone or iPad’s camera roll, at any time. There are two ways to search with snaps saved to your smartphone or tablet, both detailed below.

How to improve your Google Lens search results on iPhone or iPad

Google Lens is generally very impressive when it comes to identifying objects and returning relevant results. From animals to plant varieties to delicious dishes, it can be scarily good at detecting and recognizing the subject of your snaps. But occasionally Google gets it wrong.

In poor lighting, for example, or if the object in question has an undefined shape, Google can struggle to understand what it’s looking at. Likewise, even if Google Lens does recognize the object, the suggested search results sometimes aren’t the most useful – or accurate.

If you find that this is the case when using Google Lens on your iPhone or iPad, you can help to improve the tool by giving feedback. Scroll down to the bottom of the list of search results and you’ll see a query saying 'Did you find these results useful?' You can then tap ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The latter option will then allow you to send feedback detailing your issues, which should help make performance better in future.

Google Lens is what you get when you feed the giant mountains of data from other Google services into a camera app. 

Point your phone at a product and Google Lens will find out what it is, and how much it costs online. Show it a landmark and Lens will identify it using the vast Google Images library and tie it to handy info like opening hours. 

If there’s text, Google Lens will use optical character recognition to identify it, and let you use it as a search term without typing it in yourself.

It's been around since 2017, but rather than get quietly sidelined like so many other Google projects, Google Lens has slowly built up increasingly impressive powers – many of which aren't that well known or understood.

So we've rounded up some of our favorite Google Lens tricks here to show you how it can save you time and bother, or instantly search for things that you come across in the real world. But first, here's how to find it on Android and iPhone.

How to get Google Lens on Android

If you have a recent Android phone, a Lens mode may well already be built into the camera app. 

Look for the Google Lens icon (below), which is a couple of circles hemmed in by three sides of a square.

Nothing there? Just download the Google Lens app from the Play Store.

Using the Google Lens app is much like using a camera app. There’s a shutter button at one end, marked with search icon, because you don’t actually end up taking photos with Lens. 

Instead, the phone effectively freeze-frames the view, giving Google Lens a scene to analyze so you don’t have to keep the camera pointed at the right spot while Lens does its thing.

How to get Google Lens on iPhone

The Google Lens experience is slightly different for iPhone users. Rather than having a standalone app or being integrated into the camera, Lens is instead built into the official Google app – which you can download for free from the App Store.

From here, it's simply a case of tapping that Google Lens icon in the search bar (to the left of the microphone), which you can see circled in red below.

This will open up the camera viewfinder, which gives you access to translate, shopping, text search and food search options – essentially, almost anything you point it at, Lens will be able to search for.

There is another way to use Google Lens on iPhone – if you an open a photo in the Google Photos app, you'll see the Lens icon on the bottom row of icons (second from the right). This lets you search for info on the objects or subjects in your Photos library – for example, a particularly tasty bottle of wine you logged for future reference.

Using Google Lens: the basics

When you hit the search button in Google Lens (on Android or iPhone), you’ll see blue dots in the image highlighting points of interest, and any recognized text will be covered by translucent block of white. 

Tap on these and Google Lens will bring up the relevant results. The app also lets you pick a category to pare down the kind of results you’ll see.

These vary between platform, but on Android you’ll see options like Dining, Places, Shopping, Homework, Search, Text and Translate. It's the same on iPhone, only without the Homework option, which is a highly impressive shortcut to solving maths questions.

Here are 11 of the top things you can actually do with Google Lens right now.

The 11 best ways to use Google Lens

1. Scan barcodes

Google Lens has no problem with barcodes. After all, it’s effectively just a way to encode a number that identifies a product. 

It’s a dead easy way to look up stuff online without taking a picture of its front, or its name. That works sometimes, but there’s a consistency to the barcode approach we kind of like.

To scan a barcode, just point the Google Lens camera at a barcode (on iPhone, it's best to choose the 'Shopping' tab at the bottom), wait for it to mark the code with a blue dot and, if needed, hit the shutter. It'll then bring up the product name and link you to some online stores to buy it from. Handy.

2. Check restaurant reviews as you walk

Google Lens takes your location into account when harvesting results. Flick to the Places tab in the app, hold it up in front of a restaurant or shop front and the app will, in most cases, bring up its Google profile.

From here you can see how it’s rated according to Google’s reviews, and you can get a link to the place’s website – if it’s a restaurant you'll likely get to see the menu, too.

Of course, the building doesn't have to be a restaurant – you can also use Google Lens as a virtual tour guide, learning about local landmarks and getting spoon-fed handy information on their opening hours, historical facts and more.

3. Learn about that restaurant dish

Ever find yourself wondering what something on a menu actually is, but can't quite manage to get the attention of a busy waiter or waitress? Google Lens is perfect for this.

Just tap on a scanned menu and Lens will show you both a description of the dish, and even recipes for it. This is handy if you want to know what likely goes into the restaurant’s own version, of if you fancy learning how to make it yourself at home.

Even better for the indecisive, Lens will also sometimes highlight the restaurant's most popular dishes for you, allowing you to dig down further into reviews and real-world photos taken from Google Maps.

4. Check prices

We love a bargain, and Google Lens offers a great way to check if a shop’s sale prices are actually a good deal. Take an image of a product in the app’s Shopping tab and online shopping deals will be prioritized in the search results.

Try taking a shot of the item itself if that’s the sort of image used on the product page, and has unique identifiers, such as its name. Otherwise you might want to try shooting the box or its label. 

Google Lens may be smart, but it’s unlikely to be able to recognise, for example, a particular pair of jeans. In that case, scanning the tag would be the better option for more accurate results.

5. Search photos you've already taken

You don’t have to use the built-in camera with Google Lens – images from your gallery work just fine, too, and that means it works for something someone sent you over, say, WhatsApp.

On both Android and iPhone, press the little mountain icon by the shutter button to open up your photo gallery in the Google Lens app.

This is super-useful for images with text in them, as Google Lens will attempt to detect all text in the picture, which can then be searched and translated into different languages. Handy if you're abroad and trying to pick up the language on the fly – or just simply finding out the name of a place you visited.

6. Live translate text

Translation is one of the most useful features of Google Lens. More than 100 languages are supported, because it feeds into Google’s longstanding Translate service.

Translating text it recognizes is neat, but Google Lens goes further. The translated text is mapped onto the image in augmented reality fashion. This is particularly handy for menus and signs, we find. But you can also use it for things like train tickets, like the below.

Of course, restaurant menus aren't where this feature's use begins and ends. We've all felt a little lost or overwhelmed when in a foreign country. In this case, Google Lens can help you out in a pinch, say, if you need directions, or to figure out the specialty of a store you're interested in checking out.

Like this feature? Give the standalone Google Translate app a try too. It performs translations in real time, again in augmented reality, handy if you’re away from home and can’t read the local language.

7. Get help with your maths homework

The homework tab of Google Lens (which is currently Android-only) sounds like a way to cheat on your math homework, but it’s actually a lot smarter than that – and there’s more educational insight on offer here than you might think.

Sure, if you take a snap of a simple math calculation the links shown will include Google’s calculator and the solution, if it applies. But Google’s also offers 'Key Concept' information for algebraic equations, which tell you the basics of what’s going on in the problem posed.

Maths is a tricky subject to learn at the best of times, so with Google Lens being able to offer insight into how more advanced mathematical concepts work, we can imagine it being a handy helper for revision and preparing for exams.

8. Read out articles

Google Lens also makes great use of Google’s voice synthesis software. Using the Text tab, you can scan an article, a postcard or the back of a cereal packet, for example, and get Lens to read it out.

A Listen button will appear in the results whenever you scan text. We find this to be a great accessibility option and could be a huge boon for users with dyslexia, or even those looking to learn pronunciations of foreign words.

That's right, the Listen feature also works with non-English text. We tried highlighting both French and German text from images we'd taken, and in both cases, the phrases were audibly pronounced with appropriate local voices.

9. Copy text or notes to your laptop

One feature of Google Lens is a pretty obvious application of the tech. You can copy scanned text to your phone’s clipboard, because of course you can – but the app goes one step further than that.

Google Lens also lets you copy that text to your PC or laptop. You just need to have the Chrome browser installed, and be logged into the same Google account you’re using on your phone. There’s a 'Copy to Computer' button for this feature, and it puts the text into your laptop/desktop’s clipboard.

This can be a handy shortcut if, for example, you find a section of text on your phone you'd like to refer to later, perhaps for an essay or research. That text can then be transferred over to your PC or laptop for future use.

Impressively, Google Lens can now also copy handwritten notes from your phone to your computer, as long as your handwriting is relatively neat. Just point the Lens camera at the notes, highlight it and hit 'copy' – you should then be able to go a doc in your Chrome browser and paste the text.

10. Learn about works of art

While the Google app can be used to identify songs, Google Lens is particularly good for identifying visual works like paintings and digital artwork.

This is a pretty simple, but handy, application of Google’s Image Search. You can just use the default 'search' tab for this one on Android and iPhone.

From there, you can search for similar images, the same image at different sizes, study the origins of the picture and, if it's a digital piece of artwork, discover who drew it and find links to their websites and social media pages.

11. Identify plants and animals

The same Google Image search smarts can also be used to identify dogs, cats and types of plant. Once again it feeds into content Google already has in place. 

For example, when you search for 'Jack Russell Terrier' on Google, there’s a ready-made profile of the dog breed. It includes details like their life expectancy, average height and weight, and the common personality traits of the breed. By recognizing a kind of dog, cat or plant in an image, Lens can simply pull this stuff up instantly.

We also used Google Lens to identify a eucalyptus plant, and were able to learn all about it when the picture we snapped took us to the relevant Google search results. Doing research on plants that might look nice around the house? This Google Lens feature is your best bet, with surprisingly accurate results.

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Being able to search the web with an image is not exactly a new thing. On the desktop you can drag and drop and image into the Google search engine, and in the Android version of Chrome you can long-press an image to access the option to 'Search Google for this image'.

But searching for an image in this way is a little limited as it involves simply searching for copies of the same image. Now Google has brought the power of Google Lens to Chrome for Android, making it possible to perform much more advanced image-based searches.

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So, what's the big deal? Using Google Lens means that the image you are searching with is analyzed so you can search for similar images, not just exact copies. This is extremely handy if you're browsing the web and spot something for your home that you quite like the look of.

But maybe the item you've stumbled across is a little expensive; using a Google Lens image-based search you can easily hunt down something similar. It's also a great way to get new ideas.

What's great about Google Lens searches is that you don't have to use an entire image as the basis for a search. It is possible to crop in on a particular element that you're interested in to narrow the results a bit. And, as Android Police notes, there's no need to have the Google Lens app installed.

Enable Google Lens searching

Google Lens search for Android isn't enabled by default. If you like the idea of searching the web with images, here's how to enable the feature:

1. Pay a visit to chrome://flags
2. Search for #context-menu-search-with-google-lens
3. Tap the setting and select 'Enabled'
4. Restart Chrome by tapping 'Relaunch'

Now when you tap on an image, the context menu that appears will include a new option – 'Search with Google Lens'. While this replaces the usual 'Search Google for this image' option, you can still perform this type of search by tapping the 'Search by image' or 'Go back to classic mode' option that appears at the top of results.

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The search functionality in Google Photos is already a powerful tool, allowing you to find certain objects, locations, pets, events or even people within your snaps thanks to some clever AI, but it’s now been made even smarter.

Utilizing the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) tech found in Google Lens, you can now search for text from within Google Photos. Once it finds any images that contain that text, you’re able to use Lens to select and copy it in order to paste it elsewhere.

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While it’s especially good at finding text within screenshots and other obviously-aligned words, it can also work wonders with non-standard fonts that are skewed and distorted, which is rather impressive.

The feature was confirmed by Google Photos itself on Twitter after being initially spotted by users @can and @hunterwalk.

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As mentioned in the tweet, the feature is rolling out “starting this month”, and in the TechRadar office, both Android and web users found that they had received the feature – although its success varied across different devices – and there was no sign of it on iOS.

The implication of this is that Google Photos is automatically applying the OCR tech to all of your images, and possibly storing the metadata about the text contained within the photo in some way, although we’ll need to hear more from Google directly to confirm how this feature fully operates.

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Google Lens is one of the most useful tools on Android phones, letting you scan barcodes and QR codes, recognize products, and translate languages. Now, it seems it's about to get a useful extra function, which is directly accessing it from the Chrome app to reverse image search and more.

This rumor comes from XDA Developers, which spotted a mention of a new Lens feature in the Chromium Gerrit, a collaborative code tool used by developers. The mention was for the feature 'Add support for intenting to Google Lens from the context menu.'

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Apparently, when this code is used on an Android device, there's a small but noticeable change in the Google Chrome app. 

Currently, when you press and hold on an image in the Chrome app, one of the options is 'Search Google for this image'. This reverse image search tool is a useful function for people who want to find the origin of a picture.

With the line of code, however, this option is replaced with 'Search with Google Lens'. Previously if you wanted to search an image with Google Lens, you had to opt to share it, then select Google Lens from the range of options – now this process is significantly streamlined.

Why is the Google Lens change useful?

Google Lens doesn't just search for the source of an image, like the reverse image search, but can analyze the image for more details. If there's text on it, Google Lens will read it, and if the text is in another language it will translate it.

Thanks to the plethora of features, you can basically get any piece of information you need from an image, and now you can access Google Lens easily from Chrome, which is probably your main source of images anyway.

While this feature looks fully-fledged, we're not sure when we'll see it come to Android devices, though we'll let you know once it is out.

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Google began rolling out its Google Lens tech to Android phones back in March, allowing third-party smartphone owners to update the Google app to directly integrate Lens into a device's native camera app. 

Now Sony’s latest phones will finally include that option as well. Owners of the Sony Xperia XZ2 and Xperia XZ2 Compact will no longer have to open the Google Photos app to access Lens features, Sony announced this week. 

For now, only English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, and Italian languages support Lens features. And Sony warns that depending on your market, Xperia XZ2 owners may not have access to Lens just yet. 

Once it is available, you only need to update your Google app via the Play store. You don’t need to update your phone at all. 

Google Lens allows smartphone users to scan people or objects and automatically search Google for more information, like restaurant reviews or the history of a famous landmark. 

Just last week, Google rolled out real-time object recognition for Lens: you no longer have to take a picture to prompt Google to look something up. 

Point your camera at an Nike advertisement, for example, and Google will instantly recognize and transcribe the text, and potentially provide links to Nike’s website. 

Samsung’s Galaxy S8 and S7 smartphone families, LG’s V30 series, and the Asus Zenfone AR also support this functionality today. 

And, owners of Huawei, Motorola, Xiaomi, Nokia, ZTE or Vivo phones could also see native Lens support added in the near future. For now, Google continues to be tight-lipped about its release schedule. 

AR Wars: Google vs Apple

Google also added Lens to iOS back in March. But Apple may hope to steal some of Google’s AR thunder next week at WWDC 2018. 

New rumors suggest that Apple could unveil “ARKit 2.0” for iOS 12 on Monday. Apple’s AR ambitions may include AR multiplayer games on iPhones and iPads, but there’s no word yet on whether Apple has plans to take on Lens’ visual search engine.  

Via Android Police

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Google Lens is already fantastic for identifying objects in a still photo, but a new update is in the process of rolling out that will make it even smarter.

First seen at Google IO 2018, the update brings Lens’ powers to the forefront of the camera app, introducing real-time object recognition, as well as smart copy selection. Simply put, your phone will soon be able to automatically recognize a whole lot of places and things without having to Google it.

We’ve seen hints of brilliance from Lens before. It has been able to identify unique points of interest from a photo that we took in South Korea, as seen above, but the new update will let us see the result immediately without having to snap a photo.

Google Pixel 2 users have been able to copy text from an image and paste it elsewhere, but from the look of photos from 9To5Google, this Google Lens update brings the almighty power of context, and actually knows what’s in the photo and can do things like execute a search or translate on-the-fly. 

Google’s smart camera software recently launched on the LG G7 ThinQ and is in the process of making its way to more phones. The photos shared with 9To5Google were supposedly captured on a OnePlus 6, so signs are looking good for Lens to hit more third-party Android phones.

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In its latest blog post, Google has announced a series of pet-related features that will help present your pooch or capture your cat with Google Photos-specific functions.

Google’s Lens software, which is integrated into the Google Photos apps, uses machine learning and AR to intelligently identify objects, places, and people in photos. While Lens was previously only available on Pixel devices, the Photos feature was opened up to other select Android and iOS handsets last month.

Users with access to Lens can now use it directly on pictures of cats or dogs, identifying their breed and finding out more information about them by doing so. 

The fuzzy fun doesn’t stop there. You can also search your photos via dog and cat emojis, breed types, or if you tag a particular good boy, you can find photos of “Ziggy with a hat”.

Google Photos is available for Android via the Google Play Store or for iOS via the Apple App Store.

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If you've been itching to try out Google Lens on iOS, now's your chance, because the tool is rolling out as part of Google Photos for iOS as we speak. The software update follows on from its introduction in Google Photos for Android, which happened earlier this month.

For those of you not familiar with the tool, it's basically a clever visual search engine: point Lens at a celebrity, or a landmark, or a famous piece of artwork, or a QR code, and it'll give you the necessary information about it. Snap Ed Sheeran in the street, for example, and you get links to his YouTube and Facebook pages, and so on.

As part of Google Photos for Android and iOS, Google Lens can only work on photos you've taken. If you own a Pixel phone, you can get Lens to identify what you're looking at before the shutter button gets pressed (it's in Google Assistant).

Seeing is believing

Google has big plans for Lens, as it made clear at Google I/O last year. Over time the AI underpinning the app will get more sophisticated – maybe analyzing your meals and counting calories, or something similar.

Apparently, it's also going to be clever enough to remove objects from photos, Photoshop-style – though that feature and some of the others Google has mentioned haven't been launched yet. Eventually, any kind of AI task related to photos will fall under the Lens job description.

To get your hands on it now and give it a whirl, make sure you're running the latest version of Google Photos for Android or iOS, and open up a picture from your gallery. You should see the Lens button down on the toolbar at the bottom.

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Google Lens, once exclusive to Pixel and Pixel 2 smartphones, is now available for certain Android smartphone or tablet user, so long as you have Google Photos downloaded, the company announced yesterday. 

We’ve been impressed with this app’s potential since Google first revealed its capabilities at a conference last May. It’s a jack-of-all-trades camera app capable of everything from scanning a router code to auto-log you in, to identifying landmarks in your vacation photos, to connecting with Google Assistant in real time to pull up information on a business in front of you. 

And just last week at MWC 2018, Google’s VP of VR and AR Amit Singh showed off how Lens is incorporating their ARCore technology to unlock even more capabilities, such as add real-size furniture to your living room to see how they’d fit, or see how a car would look with a different coat of paint.

In their announcement today, Google revealed another new feature: with Lens, you’ll be able to scan a business card and instantly create a new contact on your phone. But they also announced that some Android phone users won't be able to use Lens just yet.

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Will Lens work for your Android device?

Lens’ capabilities require ARCore functionality to work, along with Android Oreo 8.0 and up. That means that even if you have an Android device with Google Photos installed, you may not be able to use Lens. 

In their recent blog post covering ARCore, Google listed the thirteen devices that should have Lens enabled (for now): 

• Google’s Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL; 
• Samsung’s Galaxy S8, S8+, Note8, S7 and S7 Edge; 
• LGE’s V30 and V30+ (Android O only); 
• ASUS’s Zenfone AR 
• OnePlus’s OnePlus 5

But don’t get too excited yet; even if you upgrade your OS and Google Photos, Lens may not immediately appear. The Google Photos Twitter rep has informed many impatient smartphone users that the update is being pushed out “in batches”, so your device may not get the new tech for a few days. 

Google has also announced that Lens is “Coming soon to iOS”, but there’s no timeframe on how long that could take. And we should assume that Lens might only work on advanced AR-enabled phones like the iPhone X. Google also plans to bundle Lens and ARCore into most future Android smartphones as well. 

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Image credit: Google

We've been impressed with Google Lens ever since we first heard about it in May, calling it a "game changer" and reporting that it's blowing our minds even though it's not even out yet.

It finally started showing up on Google Photos in Pixel units last month, and this week Google announced in a blog post that Lens will be coming to both the Pixel and Pixel 2 phones in the coming weeks as a built-in feature for Google Assistant. Just pull up Assistant like normal, and you'll see it in the lower right-hand corner.

For the uninitiated, Google Lens lets you use your Pixel's camera to learn and record information about whatever it is you're looking at. That means you could aim it at the Statue of Library and pull up some articles about it, or you could point it at a book cover and pull up an interface that will let you buy it. You can also save information from business cards or open URLs you see on posters. At its simplest, it acts as a barcode or QR scanner.

Only the beginning

That's currently about all Lens does, but Google's presentation at I/O last spring showed the company had some much wilder plans for the tech, such as a feature that would remove, say, a chain-link fence blocking the view of a baseball player at bat. That currently sounds a little too good to be true, even with the impressive list of other features, but we're excited to see if Google can pull it off. No doubt the service will only get better with time.

The feature is currently limited to Pixel phones for the time being, and the initial rollout will be limited to "Pixel phones set to English in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, India and Singapore."

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Google Lens is arguably one of the highlights of the camera on the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, but it’s already seemingly rolling out for the original Pixel and Pixel XL.

The feature is built into Google Photos and allows the phone to identify what’s in your pictures, which could be handy for example if you want to know the name of a landmark or a type of flower.

Reddit users have reported finding the feature on their original Pixel handsets and apparently this happened without any software update, so it’s worth checking the app if you’re rocking a Pixel or Pixel XL. Not everyone is seeing Google Lens yet though.

The best is yet to come

While it’s a handy feature, its current form is just the beginning, as Google Lens will ultimately also be built into Google Assistant, letting you point your camera at things and get information or options without having to first snap a photo.

For example, pointing it at a phone number could let you call that number, while pointing it at Wi-Fi login details could let you connect to the network.

We don’t know exactly when those features will arrive, but they’re probably not far behind, and even in its current form Google Lens is a useful upgrade for your Pixel’s camera.

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Via Engadget

Google just launched its new Google Lens camera app at Google IO, and it’s already blowing my mind. There are two features in particular that have really captured my attention – and they’re going to change the way we use our phones and snap pictures.

First up is the ability to auto-recognize the Wi-Fi login details on your router (or more likely, a friend or family member’s router) and connect you to the network without you having to do anything more than point your phone’s camera at the sticker.

It may not sound like a life-changing feature, but it’s one that will likely save all of us a lot of time and hassle. 

Of course, it may mean visitors to your home will start hunting round your house to find your router, and then man-handle it to snap the details off the back – but it’s better than having to recite a random string of letters and numbers every time someone shows up.

It’s simple, yes, but also great. But it’s the next feature that’s really got me hankering for some of that sweet Google Lens action.

Later, fence

At Google IO we were shown a picture of a girl playing baseball from behind the safety of the chain-link fence. It’s a nice photo, but the fence does get in the way.

Google says Lens will be able to remove the fence, and seamlessly fill in the spaces it leaves. It sounds almost impossible, but apparently it works – and I for one, cannot wait to try it out.

There is one niggling voice at the back of my mind though. "Hey John, you sure it’s gonna work like that?" 

Well, no… I’m not. There is a spot of doubt. While Google’s demo on stage, at its own event, specially tailored to make the Google Lens features look great, was impressive, there’s nothing like actually seeing it work with your own eyes.

I’ve been burned before, by features that promise something amazing but fail to perform when I get them in my hands. There’s no guarantee Google Lens will be seamless when it comes to removing obstructions from my photos. But if it does, then my word… how cool is that going to be?!

Google Lens will arrive in the coming months, and I really hope it lives up to the billing – because it has the ability to change the way we use our phones.

• All the latest launches from Google IO 2017

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has announced Google Lens, a new kind of smart camera technology that combines Google's machine learning with what you're pointing your smartphone at.

Unveiled during IO 2017, some of Google Len's myriad tricks include:

• Digitally removing a chain link fence, completely showing a baseball player unobscured.
• Identifying a certain kind of plant just by taking its picture.
• Connecting to a local Wi-Fi network simply by snapping the router's SSID and password sticker.
• Bringing up search and review results of restaurants and other businesses in the view of your picture.

Google Lens also syncs with Google Photos to provide an extra layer of abilities even after you've taken your pics. 

For example, you can look back at an image stored in Photos of, say, a skyscraper you saw during your last trip or a painting seen in a museum and then identify is as the Sears Tower or a Georges Seurat original when you get back home.

You can also use Google Lens to recognize a screenshot you took of a company's website on Google Photos, which can then pull out a phone number or address and have you getting in touch with just a single, well, touch.

Google Lens support for Google Photos is planned to roll out later this year. Needless to say, we're already quite excited at its possibilities.

• Follow our liveblog for more from IO 2017!