Google Adds Goggles Visual Search, What’s Nearby Location Service

Real-time search ruled the roost at Google’s search event at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. Dec. 7. However, Vic Gundotra, the vice president of engineering who has been spearheading Google’s moves in the green field that is the mobile Web, warmed up the crowd with key mobile and wireless services. They are: Google Goggles, a visual search application for smartphones, What’s Nearby, a location-based service, and Google search by voice in Japanese.

Google’s mobile search team unveiled a few key technologies that run the risk of being drowned out by the noise over the company’s more momentous real-time search announcement Dec. 7.