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Pixel 2 to include preview of Google Lens [Update: coming in a few weeks]
[twitter url="https://twitter.com/rajanpatel/status/921400975830654976"]
We're bring Lens to the Assistant in a few weeks. Polishing the UI a bit and ensuring that the assistant specific features work well.— Rajan Patel (@rajanpatel) October 20, 2017
[/twitter]
Judging by the tweet, it seems like Lens is in the very end stages of its development, and a "few weeks" time should put its release somewhere between early November and December. We'll let you know when we learn more.
Back at Google I/O 2017 in May, the company officially announced Google Lens, a new app that would let users take pictures and get information about the subject of those images via Google Assistant. Today, the company confirmed that its new Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL smartphones will be the first to have a preview version of Google Lens.
Google will roll out an update to both Assistant and its Photos app for those phones later this year that will add the Lens feature. Google showed off how Lens will work in a few demos, including a way for users to get information about a book just by taking a picture of it.
Speaking of the Pixel camera, Google also showed off a number of augmented reality features that will be included with the new Pixel 2 phones at the event. Users will be able to add animated AR stickers to videos and pictures. Some of them will be based on properties such as the NBA, Saturday Night Live, and Netflix’s Stranger Things. In the demo, we saw an AR sticker based on that show’s main monster, the Demogorgon, as if it was on stage. The demo then added a sticker of the mysterious Eleven, and the AR stickers reacted to each other in the demo, as the Demogorgon went back to the Upside Down via Eleven’s powers.
Star Wars fans will be happy to know that AR stickers based on the movie series will be released in December, just in time for the release of Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, to theaters.