Google Introduces Search By Image and Voice, Instantly Too

Google reinvents its roots.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Going back to its bread and butter, Google has updated its search engine drastically. Now, users will be able to search via image and voice.

Users can simply drag and drop an image or its URL into Google’s search box to identify the origins of the photo, whether you’re looking to figure out, say, the location where a vacation photo was taken or what animal species you’re looking at, hopefully lolcats included. Surprisingly, the feature will not utilize facial recognition software, except for public figures, so the new feature probably won’t raise the same level of privacy concerns as Facebook’s unpopular “Tag Suggestions.”

The voice function, first introduced on mobile devices, uses speech recognition to translate your words into the search box, but only in English for now. And the third roll-out, Instant Pages, pre-loads the search results you’re most likely to click on when you enter a query, thus saving a few seconds of your time.

“Search is at the core of our business,” Alan Eustace, senior vice president of knowledge at Google, told the New York Times. “The investment levels are continuing and increasing.”

[via New York Times and Engadget]

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