First, I’d like to credit Mind Shift for their informative “Educational Apps of the Month” posting this month. There are some real gems there and one that I want to highlight: Google Goggles. Google and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu California (one of my favorite museums of all time and listed in my article “Best Online & Interactive Museums“) have paired up to create this very cool identification app.
It plays off of the Face Recognition software that has become so famous with Facebook scandals. It is available for both iOS and Android devices. Click here to get the application (if you don’t already have it). You just take a photo of the artwork with your device (any art work) and it will then scan its library and pull up an information window.
It’s also not entirely reserved for Art Work. You can use Google Goggles to scan text, landmarks, wine labels, and more! I can’t wait to try this out! Remember, before you take photos in a museum confirm that it is permissible (and always turn off the flash!).
Amazing. Not familiar with “Facebook scandals”, but I assume this technology is similar to facial recognition software designed for police work. Let us know how well it works.
Jim, here’s a link to the FaceBook scandal: http://www.pcworld.com/article/229742/why_facebooks_facial_recognition_is_creepy.html
Largely to satisfy my own curiosity.
It is the same facial recognition software in law enforcement (well, not the same as it’s not quite as sophisticated). You also see it in Apple iPhoto (I don’t know if you’ve used that software). It ‘recognizes’ faces in your photos and tags them, so if you want to find all the photos of your granddaughter, it’s already organized.
I tried it out on a few objects in the house and it seemed to work pretty well. I think I’ll make a trip to the museum this week and try it out there. I’m also going to force my students to use it as well
[...] google. Setting up a google and gmail account will allow us to play with things like Google Docs, Google Goggles, Google Books, Google Scholar, and even Google Earth (if bandwidth [...]
[...] a number of additional tools – Google Earth was the most popular and they really loved the Google Goggles feature of the mobile app search. Those who had capable phones started running around the classroom [...]
This is awesome news.. should try it on my smart phone right away..