Mobile Photo Search: The learning potential
Dear Google, what can’t you do??? This week Google announced the launch of Google Goggles. It’s a mobile app for android phones that allows you to complete internet searches based on a photo you take with your smart phone. What’s that, you ask? Here’s an example from Google’s site:
Literally you take a picture of a bridge and it recognizes it, searches for related information, and returns information to you. That blows my mind!! How does it do that? Check out this video for more examples:
When I think of mobile apps and learning, this technology has unlimited opportunity. Think of a sales person out in the field that wants to see what kind of product the customer has? He or she takes a pic and sees the info from your company’s product guide?.Or a repair technician takes a picture of a broken appliance and can see what model it is and whether the replacement parts are available.
This technology will also be great if you know nothing about a topic. So novice learners can use the technology to find their way. It can take pictures of buildings, and using GPS, identify the building for the user. That same principle could be used for the insides of a large building or organization. New employees could take a picture of a hallway entrance to find out where they are and how to get to the cafeteria.
How else could this technology be used for learning? Are you as amazed as I am? If you have a droid phone (oh, how i’m jealous), have you used this app?