"What's his name? You know, he's the guy from that show about the place. The one with the horse."
Every had a conversation while watching a movie that went like this? Google is hoping to put an end to these cinema frustrations with new info card pop-ups in movies watched through its Play Movies Android app.
The new feature will display actor information when movies are paused in Play, similar to the info seen when a celebrity is search for through the standard Google website.
Movies need to be updated to have info card data inserted, and so far Google only have about 200 movies ready with the feature.
Adverts in disguise
Of course, this is just advertising disguised as useful information, with the actor's filmography linking to rental pages for the movies in the Play Store. Amazon does a similar thing with Kindle Fire tablets and its X-Ray feature.
Amazon launched its metadata mining tool at the end of last year and now has versions of X-Ray on the Kindle Fire tablet, Kindle Paperwhite e-reader and in its iOS app for iPhones and iPads.
Google's info cards feature is rolling out now to Android tablets in the U.S. only, and even then to a random group of testers. But, as with all Google services, expect to see it spread across the world once the search giant is positive it works.
