Google working on 'filters' to help Lens focus on specific searches

Filters include translation, documents, shopping and food

Google Lens on Pixel 2 XL

Roughly a year ago, Google unveiled a pregnant revamp of its Lens app that included real-time recognition and integrations with native camera apps. At present, it looks like Google is working on another pregnant revamp, including 'recognition filters' and more.

9to5Google decompiled the latest Google app APK — version 9.72 — from the Play Store and uncovered several pieces of unfinished code pointing to these new Lens features.

As with all APK teardowns like this, it's essential to take things with a grain of common salt. Some lawmaking could be misinterpreted, while other pieces might not come across completion.

With that said, let'due south dig into the teardown.

Lens could get translate, document, shopping and food filters

To beginning things off, Google reportedly began adding 'filters' for Lens in app version 9.61, but 9.72 includes the skeleton of an interface for selecting these filters.

9to5 managed to enable the in-evolution interface, which has five icons in a carousel at the bottom of the screen. The middle symbol is a magnifying glass, likely denoting general search.

Google lens filters

The other icons likely correspond search filters, which could put Lens in a specific manner to focus on those tools. For case, the left-near icon looks similar to the Google Translate app. The 'translate' filter could tell Lens to concentrate on translating words into your language.

Additionally, 9to5 suggests Google could improve Lens' translation feature. Instead of simply recognizing strange text and offering a link to Google Translate, Lens could 'machine-find' a linguistic communication and translate it from the 'source' to the 'target' text.

Abreast the translate filter is an icon that looks like a document. This could be for some kind of certificate scanning tool. On the right side of the carousel are 'shopping' and 'nutrient' icons. The former could be for identifying apparel, piece of furniture and other products you may want to purchase, while the latter could be an AR feature for finding nearby restaurants.

Regardless what the filters do, the signal seems to exist well-nigh refining search results based on what the user wants to know, instead of Google'southward AI taking a best approximate based on what the camera sees.

As for when nosotros tin can expect these new features to come to Lens, I think Google will announce them at I/O 2019. In other words, nosotros'll likely see them after I/O, in the summer quondam.

Source: 9to5Google