Google is rolling out an update for its Lens camera searching tool that automatically saves a user's visual search history for reference at a later date; think of it like the browsing history option in Chrome but for Lens.
As 9to5Google reports, this new feature only lets you find visual search history within the Google app on your phone, and it won’t automatically save searches done with more recent tools like the rather nifty Circle to Search.
For the uninitiated, Google Lens has long been an easy way to point your Android phone’s camera at an object and trigger a Google search for it. All you need to do is find the square-ish icon in the camera option and let the image scan. Google’s machine-learning algorithms will then attempt to identify the object you’ve highlighted and return search results for it, or at least as close as it can get to what you’re viewing.
In practice, Lens works rather well though there are limitations – it can’t, or won’t, find people, which is probably good in terms of privacy, and it doesn't always get the identification right. But that’s why the ability to save searches may be quite handy. If Lens hasn’t quite worked on, say, a type of chair you’ve pointed it at, you can refer to that search at a later date when you happen to run into your chair-expert friend.
One thing to bear in mind is that Lens scans an object and then fires it and the relevant data into the cloud, so the search history won’t be saved on the device. Instead, you’ll need to visit myactivity.google.com to access it. It’s also an opt-in feature, meaning you’ll need to access the “Include Visual Search History” option to ensure your Lens searches are saved – don’t assume Google will do this automatically. You’ll find the option to do this under ‘Data & Privacy’ and then in the ‘Web & App Activity’ section.
All in all, this might sound like a small update, and it is. But such tweaks help make using machine learning-powered tools more useful and thus prepare us for a future where AI features and options will be more prevalent in some of the best phones.
While I don’t welcome an age of smart robots enslaving us all, I’m open to having handy AI tools that make getting information a whole lot easier. I’m also waiting to see what Apple could do with generative AI when it comes to the iPhone 16.
