Santa Monica, California (CNN) -- Computers used to be blind, and now they can see.
Thanks to increasingly sophisticated algorithms, computers today can recognize and identify the Eiffel Tower, the Mona Lisa or a can of Budweiser.
Still, despite huge technological strides in the last decade or so, visual search has plenty more hurdles to clear.
At this point, it would be quicker to describe the types of things an image-search engine can interpret instead of what it can't. But rapid progress, coupled with the growing number of brilliant minds taking up the challenge, is making intelligent robo-eyesight within reach.
Hartmut Neven, an engineering director leading visual-search initiatives for Google, predicts that near-perfection could come in the next decade.
Within 10 years, we can pretty much recognize, in principle, pretty much any object we're interested in, Neven said in a recent interview. Scientific and technical progress is accelerating in an exponential (pace).
Neven began his research in 1992, and under his own forecasted timeline, is essentially more than halfway to meeting his goal.
Google Goggles
The product of his work and of a team of engineers is contained in a service called Goggles. It exists as a standalone application for Android phones and as a feature of the Google Mobile App for the iPhone.
With Goggles, the user snaps a picture, which is transmitted across cellular networks to Google's servers. Google's computers then tell the phone what they recognized in the photo. This process can take only a second or two -- and sometimes even less.
Google's algorithms, the lines of code that break down data into bits recognizable by machines, are good at picking out certain things.
Iconic buildings and artwork, products on store shelves, barcodes and magazine advertisements are a breeze. The system can recognize text on a poster and search the Web for a page with similar writing, or translate the menu at a French restaurant.
Microsoft also has a visual-search app for Bing, though its features are more limited.
