It’s not hard to imagine a slew of commercial applications for this technology. You could compare prices of a product online, learn how to operate that old water heater whose manual you have lost or find out about the environmental record of a certain brand of tuna. But Goggles and similar products could also tell the history of a building, help travelers get around in a foreign country or even help blind people navigate their surroundings.
But recognizing images at what techies call “scale,” meaning thousands or even millions of images, is hugely difficult, partly because it requires enormous computing power. It turns out that Google, with its collection of massive data centers, has just that.
Google unveiled a smartphone application called Goggles. It allows users to search the Web, not by typing or by speaking keywords, but by snapping an image with a cellphone and feeding it into Google's search engine.
But an even more compelling next communications wave is text messaging, now
hugely popular with junior high and high school students.
And as text messaging rolls across college campuses, the importance of cell
phones can hardly be overstated.
Schools like Wake Forest University (NC) are finding ways
to embrace this trend. The private liberal arts institution is currently trying
out converged Pocket PC devices in a pilot project involving 120 students and
staff.
According to Wake Forest CIO Jay Dominick, the study is beginning to suggest
that a PDA-plus-phone is a far more compelling device for students than a mere
e-mail account or standard PDA device.