Google Goggles Can Now Read Print Ads. Oh, And Play Freaking Sudoku!

Of all the mobile applications that Google has come out with in the past couple of years, Google Goggles is definitely one of the coolest. You point your smartphone at any object, and Google attempts to figure out what it is — and it’s actually pretty good at it. And now it’s gaining two pretty interesting features. Well, one interesting and one awesome.

The first is the ability to recognize print ads. Yes, you can now point your smartphone at an ad in a magazize or newspaper and Google will recognize the brand or product and return results for it. Google says that this will work for major U.S. newspaper and magazine ads from August 2010 onward.

The seems to suggest that they’ve been hard at work scanning all those ads since then. Interesting. I’m not sure who actually wants to take a picture of an ad, but hey, cool!

The second new feature is the ability to read Sudoku puzzles. This is just plain awesome. Writes Google:

Our favorite weekend distraction is a quiet 15 minutes spent solving a Sudoku puzzle. But even that can be an frustrating experience if (like us) you make a mistake and are unable to solve the puzzle. Now, Goggles on Android and iPhone can recognize puzzles and provide answers to help make you faster than a Sudoku champ. So if you ever get stuck, take a clear picture of the entire puzzle with Goggles and we’ll tell you the correct solution. Check out this video to see how it works.

Wow. Be sure to check out the video below.

Google also notes that this new version of Goggles includes faster barcode reading — at least the Android version right now.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdftOloAH9Q&fs=1&hl=en_US]