One of the most useful applications of Google’s artificial intelligence also arrives on desktops, but still in a very limited version: here’s what Google Lens can do today and what it can do in the future.
After debuting on mobile devices, the Google Lens app finally makes its appearance on computers as well. Currently, Big G’s image recognition service has been integrated within Google Photos, allowing users to recognize and capture text in photos saved on Google’s cloud.
Just in these hours, Google is releasing the feature that takes full advantage of the potential of artificial intelligence on the accounts of its users around the globe. It’s an interesting integration, then, for the Big G platform even if for the moment the demonstrated capabilities are still in their infancy compared to what’s available on the mobile application. Nevertheless, Google Lens represents a useful tool that, until now, had been reserved (at least in standalone form) only for Android devices. Apple users, on the other hand, had been able to get a taste of it exclusively within other apps made by the Mountain View giant, such as Google Search and Google Photos for Cupertino devices.
Google Lens, what it can do
As anticipated, currently, Google Lens still offers limited functionality on the desktop. In fact, its functionalities are limited to text recognition with OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology, as it already happens in the Android app.
It doesn’t recognize human faces, monuments, plants, animals, QR codes and many other elements that are normally detected in the mobile version. These are, in any case, the application’s first steps on this type of devices: many of its capabilities will probably be added to the browser version in the future.
For sure, what it can do at the moment is recognize text in an image, analyze it and import it into a text box for copying. To use the feature, simply go into Google Photos and open the image you’re interested in. If there is recognizable text present, a button labeled Copy text from image becomes available at the top of the interface. Clicking on it, Google Lens will record what is readable, showing it in a box on the right side of the screen. From there the user can copy it and insert it in a document, a note or use it as he/she likes.
Google Lens, when it arrives in Italy
Google Lens has already been activated on some user accounts in Italy while the others could start playing with the feature already in the next few hours. To find out if you’re already one of the lucky ones, just go to photos.google.com and try to view an image with some text clearly visible.
If the icon appears in the upper left corner, you can try the first scan, otherwise you’ll have to wait a few more hours.