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Last week Google launched a new application for use on Android mobile devices that allows users to use their camera phone to capture an image of something like a landmark, logo, or work of art and run a Google search off the image to instantly pull up information. It is called Google Goggles and will change the way we find information about the world around us. This type of “augmented reality” application opens up many possibilities, if you are a tourist in a new city you can instantly pull up relevant information or if you are researching different species on a hike you can take a picture of a plant to quickly identify it, or even snap a photo of a product while shopping to find the best price. There are currently similar apps out there that offer similar functionality like PlinkArt that identifies paintings or SnapTell that pulls up book information but Google Goggle is the most advanced, it can even identify people.

This is where the problem lies with the Google Goggle application, it can instantly pull up information on anyone it captures making it a threat to personal privacy. With so many people having an online presence with social networking sites, picture sharing, and video sites they are left open for strangers to quickly learn everything about them without knowing. Because of these privacy concerns, Google has blocked the ability to identify people for now. Google does not have the best track record regarding personal privacy and has been criticized by watchdog groups for their street view technology on Google Maps.

Privacy concerns aside, this technology can open up great mobile marketing possibilities. This emerging technology will no doubt change the way people use their mobile devices and interact with the world around them but the privacy concerns should not be overlooked.

This video was recently released from the Technology. Entertainment. Design. (TED) Organization features Pranav Minstry, a PhD student in the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT’s Media Lab. He explains the potential of “SixthSense technology” that integrates the digital world with the physical world. This technology is a wearable “gestural” interface that augments physical objects around us with digital informaiton  and natural hand gestures to ineract with that information.

This type of technology has been evolving for quite some time now in everything from video game applications like the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft’s Project Natal to iPhone augmented reality apps like “Metro Paris Subway“. It is really interesting to see it all come together utilizing an intuitive interface with a flexible useful system. To read more about this new technology directly from Pranav’s blog click here.