Google Lens Updates Make Learning At Home A Bit Easier

Google Assistant may take the lion's share of Google's AI exploits but Google Lens are eyes through which it sees. Deeply integrated with Google Search and its knowledge graph, Google Lens has long allowed users to search with their phone's eyes rather than with their thumbs. During this period of lockdowns and quarantines, Google is taking those features up a notch to almost literally bring text to digital life.

Google's announcement almost serves as a refresher of what Lens is already capable of and what this latest feature update adds on top. Some might not be aware of how it can "pull out" text from notes and documents you trap inside the app's viewfinder but that pretty much just saves the text to your phone. With the latest update, you can immediately send the text to your computer as well, provided you have the latest Chrome web browser signed in to the same account as your phone.

This feature makes it easier to process text on your computer but what if you needed it processed directly on your phone? Again, that's as easy as selecting the text that Google Lens is seeing and running it by Google Search no sweat.

Google Lens, and Google Translate, in fact, can already translate text you point your phone's camera at but Lens is learning a new trick on top of that. I can actually speak that text out loud (or through your headphones, if you prefer more privacy). It's the perfect learning aid for learning a new language by reading a book.

Google Lens' new features build on top of its existing text recognition skills and add a dash of Google Search and Google Translate on top. These features are available on both Android and iOS but the ability to copy text to a computer requires the latest version of Chrome.