Google is famous for just introducing new tools/effects or whatever without every really trumpeting same.

If you go back to Google Maps, for example, after not having been there for some time, you’ll just about always run across new widgets/functionality.

Today, I was at Google’s Image Search for the first time in a while. And it mentioned (in small type) a new feature: Upload an image to start your search.

Really?

I tried a picture of a zinnia (didn’t do so well, just matched the colors); uploaded a picture of a sunflower and got a lot of hits of sunflowers (and other flowers with yellow blossoms).

So I picked a very distinctive image – the statue of the sitting Lincoln in DC’s Lincoln Memorial.

Google’s result is displayed here. They nailed it.

And they are only going to get better – yet it’s impressive right now. To me, this functionality is a kind of reverse search. Normally, you go to Google Images to pull up – and download/view – an image. (What does Florence’s Duomo look like?)

The reverse search enables you to take a image from your desktop and upload to Google Images and find out just what the image is of. As this gets better, this is going to be a vacation saver.

What town in Ireland was this pub in? Upload to Google, and you might get the answer (with link to Google Maps and so on. The mind reels…)

And this is a drag-and-drop upload: HTML5 goodness. Just drag a picture from Windows Explorer/the Finder to the search bar, and a big box comes up saying drop pic here. Uploaded!

Pretty amazing, if you ask me.