Google Lens made a splash at I/O a few years ago, but the final product was barebones and hard to find. Google has worked to surface Lens in more places, and it's getting more useful. At I/O today, Google showed off several impressive new features of Lens. However, you still have to remember to use them.

Soon, Lens will be able to help you get things done when you're getting a bite to eat. You'll be able to point your phone at a menu and get the most popular items highlighted on the display. It's not clear how widespread this feature will be. In at least some restaurants Lens will also show you photos of items on the menu.

When the check arrives, Lens can help you calculate the tip. When pointing Lens at the check, you'll get a calculator overlay that calculates the tip. You can also split the bill from Lens.

For Android Go users, there's an extra feature aimed at the unique problems that these users encounter. Lens can highlight text on signs, forms, and other things, and then read it back to you. If you don't speak the language on that object, Lens can translate it instantly and read that back, too. It currently works with more than a dozen languages and only takes up 100Kb of storage. To be clear, Google only demoed this on Go, but it might be part of the regular Lens experience later.

All these features will roll out to phones over the summer.

Source: Google