Imagine walking down the street, and whoa, all of a sudden you're really not sure where you are, so you pull out your magic Google Mobile search stick, take a picture, and Google provides you with your exact coordinates. Now say you are shopping at the local Best Buy and you want to see if some other store has that iPod accessory listed cheaper. Take a picture and Google checks their database and lets you know where you can get it cheaper. Now you are are out on the town with your girl, and you really want to impress her. Take a picture of that nice high priced restaurant to see if it's any good, and Google hand your back some customer ratings.
Wouldn't that kind of tool be great? It's another device to carry around, but the time saved could be phenomenal! Unfortunately, it's not a real product. It's a concept which won an HSBC Innovation Award for designer NG Pei Kang. No it's not real, but he did put some nice thought and pretty drawings together. I wonder if he pitched Google on the idea?
[Thanks, David!]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-18-2006 @ 7:52PM
erzengel said...
Sounds like a gprs camera phone to me, with some sort of barcode reader, and, obviusly, with codes at especial locaions. its not so far from reality, can be done.
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7-18-2006 @ 10:21PM
Stom said...
I fail to understand how these functions would be made more convenient via picture-taking.
Lost? Why not use the GPS capabilities of most new phones these days and a simple java mapping program? It takes but a few button presses.
See an item in Best Buy? Why not just text the model number (since it's staring you in the face) to 46645 (GOOGL)?
Restaurant reviews? All you need is the name of the restaurant and its location.
Certainly image recognition would be a neat feature, but the same function can be done much more quickly and easily the "old fashioned way." No need to take and upload blurry camera phone pictures when a few bytes of text will do.
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7-19-2006 @ 4:02AM
Martin said...
Sounds like he's ripped off SpellBinder:
http://www.research-innovation.ed.ac.uk/records/opportunities/spellbinder.asp
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