You must have seen a strange button that sometimes appears in your chrome browser bar in the “Google Lens” label. This is actually for many years now, although it always shows. But have you ever used it? Have you given it a second idea too? Or is it just another piece of more digital disorder that edits your brain?
We have first covered the Google lens on ZDNET. We have done this many times, in fact. But we have always covered it as a feature of the smartphone.
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For smartphones, Google lens matters a lot. You can indicate it on a flower and read one on that type of plant. You can indicate it on an object or a landmark and Google will tell you what it is. You can indicate it on the text in the language you don’t speak, and it will translate to you. While traveling, it is a powerful tool.
I have also found it very useful in my Chrome desktop browser. This is what we are going to see today.
How to use Google lens in browser bar
What is this doing in your browser bar? Why does it look and start going? Sometimes it happens there; Sometimes it does not happen. what’s up with that?
Enable it
Let’s start with ensuring that it is on your browser bar. If you do not see it there, it may not be able to be able to. To enable google lens shortcuts, right-click on your browser bar and always choose Google Lens Shortcut.
Right-click on the browser bar, then choose the allways show.
Screenshot by David Guirtz/ZDNET
The thing is that Chrome will not always show Google lens shortcut, even if you have always shown Google Lens Shortcut. This is because this feature only appears when Chrome feels that the page has a media element on which the lens can function. In addition, the scripting of some pages intervenes with the action of this button, which means it cannot show on all pages.
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Keeping this in mind, there are two other ways to trigger the Google lens.
Using the reference menu on an image
You can right-click on an image and get the Google lens option in the menu.
In the above image, I wrote a unresolved photo of a car, and then used Google lens. This feature was able to tell me the car model, which was an old BMW E30 built from 1982 to 1994.
The second time when I ran a Google lens on that picture, it recognized the car as BMW 325i of 1987. it turns out These are both trueBecause E30 is body style and platform, while 325i refers to trim levels and engine designations. And now you know.
From three-dot menu
You can also trigger Google lens from the three-dot menu to the upper right of the screen.
It works in the same way as the Google lens button, in this it allows you to choose something from the page, whether it is an image or text.
What can you do with Google lens?
- Fast reverse image search
Possibly my favorite use of Google Lens in my browser is reverse image search. You can feed it an image, and the lens will try to tell you what you are looking at.
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To be fair, it is not a new Google capacity. By 2011 or 2012, you can go into the Google image search, upload an image, and get the search results.
But the lens makes it very fast. Let’s go back to go back to another useful image. In this example, I wrote a palace-like building and requested the search with Google lens. From that one action, I came to know everything about the Igthm Moti Manor House in Kent.
There is another example here. Six skyscrapers in China.
What kind of plant is this?
This funny little bike is a Yamaha RX 100.
2. Translation
I also use Google lens for translations sometimes. While Google translation does a proper job on the text you can paste in an area, what is about the text that is in a scan or on a sign? Well, like a screenshot I used Google and Chatgpt to translate in April, do not expect AI to be correct.
The neon sign below translates either “your business can thrive” or “prosperous business”.
But wait, there is more. The second time when I ran a Google lens, it translated the signal of the “main idea arrival”. I hope it will come soon. the sooner the better.
3. Product identification
I also find out which products are in a picture on a site. This is a picture that I took to my camera, but when the Sony logo appears, the camera model is not identified in the image. Google Lens was able to identify it quickly.
4. Chart and table explain
I will finish with one of my favorite uses of Google lens (and a cool hack). The table shown below is the popularity of my programming languages ​​from the article, and the table represents various popularity.
One of my favorite uses of Google lens is to choose a chart or a table, and then “Explain this table” or “Explain this chart”. The lens will often analyze an analysis on the table or chart, and will draw some quick conclusions. It is a huge time-seed and is a very useful use of the underlying AI.
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Have you used Google lens in your chrome browser? Did you also realize that it was there, or is it just mixed in the background? What kind of things have you tried: Pictures, translation, mystery objects? Have you found it more useful with desktop or mobile? Let us know in the comments below.
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