At the end of last year, a Google Search update came out that added a "Search with Camera" feature. With Google Search, you could fire up your camera, snap a picture of something, and it would do an image search - it was basically Google Goggles integration. Besides the usual Goggles stuff, it was also really useful for scanning QR codes.

But, a few days ago, when the Search 2.5 update hit, "Search With Camera" got kicked to the curb.

On the left is 2.4, on the right is 2.5. In 2.5, the "Search with camera" menu option is gone, and none of the voice commands work - camera search is completely disabled.

We've tried contacting Google about this, and they never got back to us, so we really have no idea why this feature suddenly vanished.

We know technically why. "Enable_goggles" in res\values\bools.xml is set to "false," which really doesn't look like an accident. So the question is, why? Why remove a perfectly working, useful feature?

Hopefully someone out there at Google is listening, and will at least give us an answer.