Ever since Google goggles inception I, like many others have been asking 1 question, what is the purpose of Google goggles? When I installed it on my painfully slow T-Mobile G1, I quickly realized, I could type my search query in the universal search box on my home screen more quickly than I could pull up the app drawer, start the app (on a painfully slow G1) press the camera button, wait for it to auto focus (on a painfully slow G1), take the picture, & let Google goggles do its magic to return me a result (did I mention I was using a painfully slow G1?). So in January when I stepped up to The Nexus One, The worlds first super phone, the first application I chose not to transfer was, Google goggles. But a few weeks later, when my Nexus saw its first update, one of the first things I noticed (besides multi-touch in the browser & maps) was that, they had bundled Google goggles as part of standard Android. Needless to say, it was an icon that didn't get any finger love. Its usefulness was never realized, until now. Google has updated it goggles application to version 1.1 & by doing so, found its usefulness, language translation. By taking a picture of foreign text, using a neat little built in crop tool, Goggles will translate the text in a variety of languages on the fly. If you're a frequent traveler to foreign lands it's a must have. Or if you buy an electronic device from eBay or Amazon & the directions are all in Cantonese, you can now still use them thanks to the help of Google goggles. Now all Google needs to do is find a better implementation for gesture search & all of its icons will receive much more finger love.
