Google Lens, already available for Chrome on Android lets you do an image search and fetches text from images. Google is now testing Lens Image search in Chrome 94 on desktop with its beta for Windows and Linux.
What is Google Lens? What it can do
- Google Lens is a smartphone camera-based App, available also in Google, Google Photos Apps on Android.
- It lets you “Search what you see”. For instance, you can use it to identify objects such as plants and animals in the real world.
- You can copy printed and handwritten text with Lens and send it to Chrome on a computer.
- Lens uses computer vision, machine learning, and Google’s knowledge graph and converts things people see in the physical world into a visual search box
- It will find similar objects to what you’re seeing. A great tool that helps in shopping.
Till now the Lens used Smartphone Camera and artificial intelligence technology to do these things, Google is bringing Lens Screen search to Chrome on the desktop.
First and foremost this is an experiment, like other Lab features, and may not be entitled to ship with the Chrome 94 release.
Enable Google Lens Search in Chrome on desktop
- To get started, download and install the latest Chrome beta.
- Click on the Experiments icon on the toolbar or visit chrome://flags
- Find “Search your Screen with Google Lens“
- Select Enabled and restart Chrome browser.
How to use Google Lens Search
- Right-click anywhere on the screen and select “Search Part of Page with Google Lens“
- Drag on the screen with your mouse to create a region to search. Google Lens does the image search and shows the results in a new tab.
For instance, when we selected the “Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3” image as the region in a YouTube video, Lens produced the correct results for it. Check the above screenshot.
Here, the lens Search with Artificial Intelligence found the phone correctly and displayed “Top match” and “Visual matches” for Samsung’s Flip 3 phone on the results page.
If you’re not happy, you can try the Google Image search option available at the bottom.
Google calls the feature “Lens Region search” and encourages users to use the tool while they browse and shop on the web in the Chrome browser.
You should choose YouTube videos, still images, and GIFs to test the feature.
If you spotted something in video or on a shopping site, go ahead and try “Search your screen, with Google Lens”,
What’s your take on Google Lens Search in Chrome browser on Desktop? Have you found it useful on Android? Let us know in the comments below.
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Chrome for Android: Bookmarks getting a ‘Visual Refresh’
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