Google Goggles gets faster and smarter

Today we’re launching a new version of Google Goggles that’s faster and smarter than ever before. The new Goggles 1.3 client for Android can scan barcodes almost instantly. All versions of Goggles can now recognize print ads in popular magazines and newspapers. Finally, Goggles has also learned a fun new trick for Sudoku fans.

Barcodes
When shopping offline, it’s helpful to be able to learn more about a product by scanning its barcode. With the new Android version of Google Goggles, scanning barcodes is much faster. Open Goggles and hover over the barcode or QR code. Within a second the phone gently vibrates and presents results, without requiring a button press. Simply tap on the result to read product reviews, check in-store availability and compare prices.
Print ads in magazines and newspapers
We’re excited to take another step in our vision of connecting offline media to online media. The next time you’re flipping through the pages of your favorite magazine, try taking a picture of an ad with Goggles. Goggles will recognize print ad and return web search results about the product or brand. This new feature of Goggles is enabled for print ads appearing in major U.S. magazines and newspapers from August 2010 onwards.
This feature is different from the marketing experiment that we announced in November. We’re now recognizing a much broader range of ads than we initially included in our marketing experiment. And when we recognize a print ad, we return web search results. While in the experiment, we return a specific link to an external website.
Sudoku
Our favorite weekend distraction is a quiet 15 minutes spent solving a Sudoku puzzle. But even that can be an frustrating experience if (like us) you make a mistake and are unable to solve the puzzle. Now, Goggles on Android and iPhone can recognize puzzles and provide answers to help make you faster than a Sudoku champ. So if you ever get stuck, take a clear picture of the entire puzzle with Goggles and we’ll tell you the correct solution. Check out this video to see how it works.

Google Goggles 1.3 with improved barcode scanning is available for download in Android Market. Recognition of print ads and Sudoku solver is now enabled for the Google Goggles app on Android, as well as the Goggles component of the Google Mobile App on iPhone.

The shadow bug is fixed!

Earlier today, we announced a maintenance release for Google SketchUp 8 (free and Pro) that is a free upgrade for all SketchUp 8 users. One of the bugs we’ve fixed is the oldest and thorniest in our bug tracker. Most folks call it the “Shadow Bug.”

Let’s roll back the clock a little bit before I explain the fix. In the spring of 2001, we introduced real-time volumetric shadow rendering in SketchUp 1.1. At the time, only video games were really doing this sort of rendering, and it was pretty exciting to see shadows cast from a model that you made yourself. When I got my first demo, I declared them to be the most “Undeniably Sexy” thing that I had seen all week. It was shortly after that that I left my day job to join @Last Software – SketchUp was clearly something that I had to be a part of.

Awesome though shadows were in most cases, there was a fatal flaw. When the camera passed inside a shadow volume, there were places where the rendering algorithm just plain fell flat on its face – leading to flashy, jagged and just plain wrong-looking shadows from some points of view. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any obvious way around that problem.

In the SketchUp 3 and 4 release cycles (launched in July of 2004), we worked on this problem some more and found a new algorithm that looked promising. Unfortunately, we found that this algorithm, while usually better when the camera was inside the shadow volume, failed even more spectacularly than our original algorithm in other common uses. Admitting temporary defeat, we pulled the new algorithm out and went back to the drawing board again.

Hero engineer sporting early @Last Software t-shirt

As I’ve often said when asked about “the shadow bug”, the only way we’d be able to fix it is if we came up with a clever new algorithm. As luck will have it, one of our engineers (the same guy who implemented the original shadow rendering ten years ago) never quite gave up on the problem. And a few weeks ago, he figured out a new solution. Just like that. I’m proud to say we’ve (finally) fixed shadow rendering for all those cases where the camera was inside the shadow volume and included it as a part of today’s maintenance release. Need a visual? Here’s a video that shows the our new and improved shadow rendering at work:

There’s lots of other good bug fixes in M1, and it is both free and recommended for all users. Here’s how to make sure you have the latest version of SketchUp 8:

Windows: Choose Help > Check for Update
Mac: Choose SketchUp > Check Web for Update