Having some trouble solving a Sudoku puzzles? See a print advertisement you can’t quite place? How about a logo you can’t identify? These are all things that Google’s clever Goggles mobile application (for iOS and Android) can do for you. The first two are new, as of the latest release of the app.
What happens is that the phone scans the image with its camera, it calls back to Google and it’ll solve your puzzle or identifies that print ad you inexplicably took a picture of.
The Sudoku-solving ability could prove to be useful if you ever get stuck, though I can’t see why you’d ever need to recognize a print ad, but that’s not the point, is it? The point is that Google’s image recognition is becoming incredibly powerful and that it can use that recognition not only to spit back some data but to process the data and do something with it, like a bit of mathematics. While the Sudoko solving might just be a parlor trick, the system is getting quite powerful and we can look forward to any number of advancements like it in the future.
Speaking of slim and sexy, the Sony Ericsson Xperia arc slipped cover a bit early on Wednesday. Measuring 8.7mm thick at its narrowest point, this curved Gingerbread phone sports a 1GHz processor, an 8-megapixel camera and a 4.2-inch touchscreen display. 
