MOUNTAIN VIEW, USA - Google released its first visual search service - Goggles for users of Android devices earlier this week. The innovative service combines GPS, camera and internet capabilities of a mobile device, and is yet another technological breakthrough from Google.

While Google's voice search has been available on almost all the major mobile platforms including the iPhone, Symbian, BlackBerry and Android, Goggles is presently available only on the Android platform. However, Hugo Barra, the lead of Google's international product development team, has assured that the technology will be ported to other mobile platforms in the subsequent months. In an interview with Patrick Smith of MocoNews, Barra highlighted Google's policy of investing disproportionately across the platforms with more popular platforms getting increased attention for mobile application development from Google. With the iPhone raking in the popularity charts across the globe, Goggles can soon be expected to be available on this smartphone, followed by subsequent releases in BlackBerry and Symbian markets.

The innovative visual-based search services aims at bringing seamless search experience for users of internet-equipped mobile devices. By integrating camera and GPS, the service can provide real time information for landmark details and other useful information such as business establishments in the locality just by pointing the device at a landmark. Further, the service can also read barcodes and list pricing and availability information for the product in the nearby areas.

While the service looks very promising, it is not yet available on some of the most popular mobile platforms today. However, with the service expected to be available across all the major platforms in the subsequent days, the free service from Google can mean a deathblow to some of the paid augmented reality applications offering similar services.