In what could be a sad day for puzzle fans around the world, Google’s Goggles- a newly updated mobile phone application- can now instantly solve any puzzle with any mobile phone with a camera. The days of Sudoku could be very well be numbered…
With Google Goggles, a person can use a phone’s camera to capture a picture of any Sudoku puzzle, send it back to Google, and then just wait for the company’s servers to compute the answers and send an image of the completed puzzle back. Depending on the speed of the phone’s internet connection, the results can be back in seconds.
According to Phil McNeill, the Daily Telegraph’s Puzzles Editor the move was “a sad day” for puzzle fans. “When you finally solve a real mind-bender, it brings a rush of achievement. I hope Google’s new tool won’t diminish that feeling,” he said. Google Goggles works by capturing images and sending them to the company’s central servers. These images are then compared to the firm’s vast web index, just as if they were a search term entered as text. The latest version of Goggles means that, along with landmarks and other well known images, the software now also recognizes adverts, barcodes and Sudoku. However the main function of the application is price comparison information and general web searching. Goggles is available on the iPhone and all Google Android phones.
