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Some of the features that were first hinted at earlier this week in a teardown of the Google app are reportedly beginning to roll out to the Google Lens portion of Google Assistant now. Those include new additions to the “remember this” functionality, as well as new image-based translation tools and Google Keep integration. Unfortunately, the features still appear to be limited to Pixel-branded devices, both first and second generation. However, the fact that Google Lens is beginning to resemble what was promised at the Google I/O developer conference earlier this year could mean that it will begin rolling out to Android Oreo users across the board soon enough.
As to the features themselves, the biggest new addition comes in the form of a tool for translating text on images viewed through the camera. That’s because image translations were a major part of the abovementioned developer conference way back in May. For those who have access to the tool, using it is fairly straightforward. When viewing an image through Lens, a suggestion will appear which reads “Translate.” Tapping that suggestion or saying “Translate this” will result in any words on the screen being overlayed with a translation. Users are then able to provide feedback in the form of a thumbs up or thumbs down response, indicating whether or not they believe the translation is correct – or whether the tool functioned properly. Moving past translations, the “remember this” function has been updated to include the saving of images. Asking Google Assistant “What did I ask you to remember?” will now return those saved images alongside other saved items. Those images are zoomable and can be forgotten just as intuitively as other items a user has asked Google Assistant to remember. Finally, the update adds a suggestion to “import to Keep” which allows for easy importing into Google Keep directly from Lens. A voice command can also be used to accomplish the same task, as well as the previously available sharing tools.
As previously noted, there is still no timeframe for when these features will begin to hit non-Pixel devices. That shouldn’t be too far off, with consideration for all of the progress the search giant has made with Google Lens so far, but there’s really no way to know for sure. In the meantime, these features are at least rolling out to Pixel users now and should prove useful.
