Google Goggles Now Recognizes 45,000 Types of Banknotes from Over 300 Countries

Google Goggles has added another entry to the list of things it can recognize, money. Specifically, it can recognize pretty much every banknote now in use and even some no longer issued from more countries that there are on the planet today.

Google boasts that its visual search tool can recognize some 45,000 different types of banknotes from over 300 hundred countries. Google probably arrived at this number since it can recognize money issued by countries that are no longer around.

Those kinds of numbers indicate that Goggles should be able to recognize pretty much any relatively recent banknote, much of those issued in the 20th century and probably some older ones as well.

Chances are that it's going to be able to recognize anything you can throw at it, unless you're a serious collector with some rare items on your hands.

"Since we launched Google Goggles in 2009, the team has been busy expanding the number of images that can be recognized in categories like book covers, logos and works of art—even partnering with world-class art museums like the Getty Museum and Metropolitan Museum of Art," Google wrote.

"We've been at work adding new categories of objects that Goggles can recognize, like Sudoku puzzles and, starting today, currency notes. Now, when you point Google Goggles at a banknote you'll get a result telling you the type of bill you're looking at, including the country, denomination and the year," it announced.

The usual caveat applies, Google Goggles is by no means perfect so it won't work perfectly with every banknote. Even if it recognizes a banknote, one common error is that it gets its value wrong, so it's not much use for the visually impaired, for example.

Still, Goggles is improving all the time, the tool is getting better and it will eventually, slowly perhaps, become significantly more accurate than it is today.