This article might came a bit late, but I am so excited about Google Goggles, and it makes me want to buy an android phone even more! :D
Basically to use this ultra handy apps is just simply :
1. Take picture of EVERYTHING you want to know 2. Send it up to Google 3. Google will be back in a sec with an explanation! (or depends on how fast is your internet connection I guess.. )
Whether its a landmark you wanted to know more about, a painting you saw somewhere, a menu in French you'd like to know what it is and how to make it, and even a road sign in Chinese you're desperately needed to know what it says!
This technology is awesome! It's almost something like Layar I guess, but more developed.
In my opinion, you'll be as knowledgeable as the Wikipedia once you have this power tool in your pocket! ;)
It's so amazing and beautiful. It looks like something that comes from a parallel universe totally different from our world today. But it's not. The technology was first discovered around 200 BC; spreading from the Greek to the Arabs and then to the rest of the world. It became popular in Europe on the 13th century.
It reminds me a lot of Lyra Belacqua's Alethiometer (from the Golden Compass, the first novel in Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials).
So what does this device do?
Basically it tells time. And it features a calendar; it can show you the prayer times (for Muslim); directions for Qibla; and more than 1000 functions in relations to astronomy, astrology, horoscopes, navigation, surveying, etc.
And it runs on mechanical measures only. No battery or electricity whatsoever needed. It's like the greenest super-computer ever! :D How cool is that?!
It made me see things from a totally different point of view. That technology doesn't equals with electricity/ electronics. It means we (the human race) can be superbly advanced in technology, and doesn't necessarily need a single watt of electricity!
And the most beautiful thing is that, to use this device, you have to connect yourself with Nature. The Universe. Because to tell the time using Astrolabe, first you will need know the name and positions of the stars in the sky; as it will correlate with the constellations that already marked in your Astrolabe's plate. It means that you have to take your time, slowing down, look up to the sky, appreciate Nature's beauty, and then it means that you'll need to have a clear & unpolluted sky.
It's a device with highly advanced technology that let us work with Nature instead of protecting ourselves from Nature (the case with some recent "advanced" technologies); which most of the time leave us totally forgetting what and where we're coming from; and merrily destroying the Nature we're supposed to protect along the way. And with that, destroying our own future.
