Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

Google Rolls Out “Real-Time Search” and “Google Goggles” App

By
google-goggles
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Google wins again for coming up with another cool and inventive search tool—what else is new? Today Google announced at its “Searchology” event it launched its new “search options” on its main search page. This news turned out to be Google’s Real-Time Search, a new search feature that gives you the very latest and more specific results for your searches. When you click “Search Options,” you can filter your search with more specific results like by time, related searches, a “wonder wheel” view, or a timeline view.

This new Google search feature is not a replacement, it will be embedded as a part of the Google’s main page search window—a scrolling feed will constantly update and inform you of the newest results on that search, and it also lets you backtrack to see what you’ve missed. Google’s Real-Time Search feature went live today, but it may not be in full effect, as Google says it may take a few days to fully roll out its functions.You can try out this new search option for yourself at Google Trends page just by clicking on one of the “Hot Topics” or entering your own search in the field below them to get real-time results.

Recommended Videos

Another Google tool launched today was “Google Goggles,” a visual search option available as an application for Google Android phones. Google Goggle’s can recognize certain landmarks, famous attractions and paintings, and even company logos all with the click of a button. Simply snap a photo with your smartphone’s camera and Google compares elements of that picture against its database of images, matches it up and provides you with a relevant results lists of Web sites and news stories.

“Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words,” said Shailesh Nalawadi, product manager for Google Goggles. “For many search queries, using an image to search is easier and more useful than text alone, especially on a mobile phone. Computer vision technology is still in its infancy, but Goggles demonstrates its potential. We are hard at work extending our recognition capabilities. You can imagine a future where visual searching is as natural as pointing your finger.”

Check out these videos that demo and explain Google’s two new features.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Dena Cassella
Dena Cassella
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Haole built. O'ahu grown
Fake AI images are showing up in Google search — and it’s a problem
An AI-generated image of a famous Hawaiian singer.

Right now, if you type "Israel Kamakawiwoʻole" into Google search, you don't see one of the singer's famous album covers, or an image of him performing one of his songs on his iconic ukulele. What you see first is an image of a man sitting on a beach with a smile on his face -- but not a photo of the man himself taken with a camera. This is fake photo generated by AI. In fact, when you click on the image, it takes you to the Midjourney subreddit, where the series of images were initially posted.

I saw this first posted by Ethan Mollick on X (formerly known as Twitter), a professor at Wharton who is studying AI.

Read more
Watch out: Google Drive may have lost months of data
Google Drive in Chrome on a MacBook.

If you're using Google Drive to back up your files, you may need to make sure everything's in order -- and perhaps even back those files up again somewhere else. While cloud storage is typically considered to be one of the safer methods of storing data, several users have reported that Google Drive may have misplaced their files. In some cases, the data loss goes as far back as May 2023. Here's what we know, and how you can protect yourself.

Over the last few days, multiple complaints started cropping up on the Google Support forums. It appears that Google has a pretty worrying problem on its hands, and it was first reported by user Yeonjoong. Files are suddenly vanishing for some users, with seemingly no way to get them back. The user said that their drive seems to have gone back in time to May 2023, including files and folder structure.

Read more
Google witness accidentally reveals how much Apple gets for Safari search
The Google "G" logo on an Android phone.

As part of a deal to be the default search engine on Apple devices, Google pays the tech giant 36% of the revenue earned via search ad activity on Apple's Safari browser.

It’s extremely rare for information of this nature to be made public. In this case, it was released during Google’s defense at the Justice Department's antitrust trial in Washington, D.C.

Read more