At Google I/O today, the company announced a new feature for Assistant and Photos called Google Lens. Lens will come in updates to the Google Assistant and Google Photos and will tell you more about what's in front of your device's camera, giving you contextual information and actionable options depending on what you're looking at.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai revealed Google Lens early in the conference's keynote, and it sounds much like the technology in the original Google Glass. You can point your Android device's camera at something, be it a flower, a restaurant, or a Wi-Fi network name, and Google Lens will give you more information about what you're looking at. In the demo, Google showed an image of a flower that Google Lens was able to immediately identify.

Later on in the keynote, another demo showed Google Assistant using Lens' technology to translate Japanese writing to English as a camera was pointed at a Japanese sign. Google Assistant will also provide contextual information; point your device's camera at the marquee of a movie theater, and Assistant will use Lens to identify movies and provide you with different options, including buying tickets, adding movie times to your calendar, and more.







Arguably the most exciting example shown in the demo involved a photo of a Wi-Fi network's name and password. Google Lens can make connecting to networks a snap—simply point your device's camera at a Wi-Fi network's info, and it will instantly connect your device to the network.

According to Pichai, Google Lens will roll out to Google Assistant and Google Photos first and to other projects later.

The 2017 Google I/O keynote is currently in progress, and we'll add more information to this article as it becomes available. For the most up-to-date details, follow the event in our liveblog.