Originally announced at Google I/O 2017, Lens is a visual search engine. When you take a picture with your phone, Google will do an analysis and provide insights into what you’re looking at. Now, it’s getting even better, and can store information from business cards as contacts, and even describe landmarks you’ve spotted.
Open a photo of a business card in Google Photos and navigate to Lens. In seconds Lens will automatically create a contact for you using the information printed on the card.
The other cool new feature to Google Lens is the ability to identify and provide context to famous landmarks. In addition to identifying buildings, Lens also gives you information you might need. This includes things like a description of the place, or its opening hours, thereby saving you a Google search.
Google Photos comes pre-installed on most Android devices, but if you can’t find the feature, you might need to update it.
The latest version of Google Lens is found in Google Photos. If you don’t have it, you can download it here.
iOS users will have to wait a bit to use this. Google announced a version of Lens for Apple’s iOS platform at MWC 2018, but hasn’t given any dates for when it might arrive. Expect it in a few weeks.
