Google launched a new version of its Google Goggles application for iOS and Android smartphones today. The latest iteration, version 1.3, can now recognize print ads in magazines and solve fairly difficult sudoku puzzles in a few seconds, and is also faster at processing barcodes and QR codes seen with a phone's camera.

Goggles' barcode recognition now works in under a second, according to the relevant post in the Google Blog: just point your phone's camera at the barcode or QR code, and the app will pull up product information without requiring a button press. From there, users can move on to searching for the product on the Web, or in a more specific Google tool if applicable—for example, a barcode on a book would pull up an option to search Google Books.

Google Goggles can also now recognize certain print ads, specifically those in "major US Magazines and newspapers from August 2010 onwards." Pointing the app at an ad will pull up a search for the brand, or failing that, a matching image search.

The last new trick of Goggle's is its new Sudoku puzzle solver. In a demo video, a Google employee shows the app soundly beating the 2009 Sudoku national champion, Tammy McLeod, who, to be fair, has to pause a couple of times to give the Google employee using his phone looks of disbelief.

Google Goggles 1.3 is now available in the Android Market, and these features are also now enabled in the Goggles subsection of the Google Mobile app for the iPhone.