Google Goggles for iPhone recognizes ads, solves Sudoku puzzles

Your iPhone just got a little bit smarter thanks to some help from Google. As reported by MacStories, a new version of the Google Goggles component of the iPhone Google Mobile App is available for downloading, and this update does something pretty impressive -- it can help you solve those pesky Sudoku puzzles you love to torture yourself with. By using Goggles to take a picture of the puzzle you are working on, you can now take all the hard work out of figuring out the answers.

In addition to the new Sudoku-solving abilities, this update also can scan any printed advertisement and return web results for whatever product or service the ad is for. Goggles can now recognize print ads "appearing in major U.S. magazines and newspapers from August 2010 onwards," a major upgrade from the way it worked in the past when it just enabled users to search the Web by taking pictures with their mobile device.

I have been using the Amazon barcode scanner and Red Laser on my iPhone for what seems like forever, and Google Goggles' ability to scan and look up any ads I am interested in seems like another helpful feature to do my comparison shopping with.

Click on Read More to check out video of Google Goggles solving a Sudoku puzzle.

[via MacStories]

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Source: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/google-goggles-gets-f…

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Your iPhone just got a little bit smarter thanks to some help from Google. As reported by MacStories, a new version of the Google Goggles...

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badweasel

How boring.. I'd rather play the game on my phone than have the phone just solve the puzzle for me. It's cute but not really useful in the long run.

Of course I sell a real sudoku game for iPhone.. so I'm biased. (Big Bad Sudoku Book). ... :)

January 11 2011 at 7:37 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Simpleminded

Can google goggles solve linear equations for me?

January 11 2011 at 12:41 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

mobiledaveb

Great - yet one more way to let google intrude into every aspect of your life.

January 10 2011 at 7:38 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to mobiledaveb's comment

Gillan

*yawn*

You can allow it to "intrude" on your life, or not use it.

very simple actually.

January 10 2011 at 8:14 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

StefanB

But there's an app for that (already) on iPhone. You could just use Sudoku Grab Application which I've been playing with for a while. You can take a picture of sudoku and then either solve it or have it solved. It's great app.

January 10 2011 at 7:02 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

tinyj316

I tried to solve a sudoku with goggles, and it didn't pick up all the given cells, causing the answer to be useless. This happened on more than one puzzle as well...Puzzle solvers, beware!

January 10 2011 at 6:46 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to tinyj316's comment

Ashwin

Though the feature isn't useful for anything other than showing off how smart Google's programmers are. If you're using it to solve a puzzle for a competition, that's just plain unethical. If you're using it for fun, well, it takes the fun out of it.

January 10 2011 at 8:55 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

mack

Great video.

January 10 2011 at 5:22 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Seems to be Android only for the time.

January 10 2011 at 5:19 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to jh's comment

CHRiS

the update hit the apple store at the same time - but the prior version of goggles for iphone worked (I can only guess it was being done in the back end because I took a pic of a Sudoku puzzle and it solved it --- then I saw the app update and updated, did it again, still solved it the same as before the update)

January 10 2011 at 5:43 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply