Google Applies for Photo-based Landmark Identification Technology
Google has applied for a very interesting patent. This one allows a user to find their location by taking a photo of a landmark. After taking the photo, it’ll be shipped off to Google’s servers where they’ll attempt to match your photo with one in their database. If a match is found, Google will deliver the user’s location back to the phone. It’s quite interesting, but it seems rather impractical. Sure, it might be useful for situations where your GPS can’t seem to get an accurate lock, but I assume this would need a data connection and Google Maps has been quite accurate at finding my position based on my cellular connection. I suppose even that isn’t terribly accurate sometimes so there may still be value here. Of course, a patent is just a patent and there’s no guarantee will ever implement something like this. Hell, there’s no guarantee that they’ll get awarded the patent, but if some of the silly things Apple’s been able to patent are anything to go by, I’m sure Google won’t have a problem. Unless… [Engadget]