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Google released a new app (right now for Android only) called Goggles. If you haven’t seen this year, go look!

I downloaded this on my Droid and have been playing around with it for a few days. All I can say is that this is crazy. Take a picture of something and Google will (most of the time) find you some info on it. I’ve played around with some examples:

Took a pic of my Macbook Pro sitting on my desk… and Google new it was a Macbook.

I was across the street from the Fox Theater in Boulder and I took a pic of the front of the building. Google knew it was the Fox, and brought up info and links to a map.

I found a Hanna Montana pink tissue box at a local store and I took a pic.. Google knew it was Hanna…

Supposedly it will recognize wine labels too. This is some neat technology and could be useful. Sometimes its hard to search for something based on text, especially if you dont know exactly what you are looking at or it is in some foreign language.

Maybe eventually this will couple with Google’s really great translation tools and do things like translate street signs on the fly… it also reads barcodes and book covers, but its a bit slower than other Android apps for just that.

Those of you with Android (and particularly Moto Droid) should really check out Handcent SMS. Since Android lets any app hook system events (like sms receive) you can simple turn off notifications in the built-in SMS app and use Handcent instead.

There are several very nice improvements over the default:

– Skins. You can use an iPhone skin to get that iChat sms feel.

– Popup notification. If you choose, you can have an iPhone like popup when you get an SMS. However, unlike the iPhone, the popup window lets you do a quick response back without even opening the SMS app.

– Voice to Text!!!! This is awesome. Jsut hit Menu -> Voice when in an sms thread and the standard Google Voice box pops up, just speak your message and bam, the text is put in a message for you. This is killer because its way faster than using and on-screen or physical keyboard. And when you are driving, much safer

– Widget that launches SMS on click, and displays unread msg number.

All this and the app is free!