Google Goggles: An Introduction

Google Goggles -- not to be confused with , the company's inebriated e-mailing preventer -- lets you search from your cell phone simply by snapping a photo. Want more info on a product? Take its picture. Need info about a business? Photograph the storefront. Put simply, this thing packs some serious power, and its capabilities stretch far.

Google Goggles currently supports photo-based searching for (take a deep breath): books, DVDs, landmarks, logos, contact info, artwork, businesses, products, barcodes, and plain text.

Here's how it works: When you capture an image, Google breaks it down into object-based signatures. It then compares those signatures against every item it can find in its image database. Within seconds, it returns the results to you, ordered by rank. Some results are returned before you even snap a photo, too, thanks to seamless integration of GPS and compass functionality.

But enough on the nuts and bolts. Let's put search-by-sight to the test.