Google is launching a pair of interrelated features that allows you to point your phone’s camera at a restaurant’s menu to see user reviews and photographs of the dishes. The feature is designed so as to make it easier for people to pick what to eat at restaurants. The feature is available through Google Lens, a piece of software that’s available as an app and is also built into the camera on Google Pixel devices.
Google has confirmed that the feature will be launched by the end of this week with support for menus in English, and more languages will be included in the future. In order to provide user reviews through Google Lens, you can add a review after taking a photo of a particular dish, which will also be automatically translated if you're in a foreign country.
Last year, Yelp too had added an identically named Popular Dishes feature to its reviews. However, Google and Yelp’s implementations work a little differently. Although both of them use machine learning to comb through existing reviews and match them with dishes, Google will also let you add information and photographs about specific dishes, rather than just having you review the restaurant in total.
