Google Photos just got an Awesome Feature...automatically convert printed words inside the picture into computer-readable text.

Google Photos just got an Awesome Feature that makes it a Must-Have for Android, iPhone, and iPad Devices

Dick Eastman · August 23, 2019 · Cloud Services, Photography, Software · One Comment

This article isn’t about genealogy but it is about a new software tool that will be valuable for genealogists and for millions of others.

From an article by Chris Smith in the BGR.com web site:

“Google Photos is easily one of the best apps you could have installed on your phone, especially if it’s an Android device, and especially a specific type of Android that comes with unlimited storage. Even if you prefer a different cloud or storage device for your photos, you should still consider getting the Google Photos app on your Android or iPhone right now, because the service is about to get a super convenient feature.

“That’s optical character recognition (OCR), a feature that allows Google to read the text in photos and turn it into text that you can search for, and even copy and paste into documents. That’s a handy feature to have on a phone, especially if you find yourself taking lots of photos of things that contain plenty of text that you’d want to be able to access later.”

Yes, take a picture of a sign or of a page in a book or of a document and Google Photos will automatically convert printed words inside the picture into computer-readable text.
Similar software that is to be installed in your computer has been available for years but at rather high prices. Now Google Photos will do the same thing for free and with no software installed in your computer. It works on Windows, Macintosh, Chromebook, Linux, Android, IPad, iPhone, and other operating systems because all the software runs in the cloud.
You can read the details in Chris Smith’s article at: https://tinyurl.com/eogn190823.