What to know
- Google is bringing Android’s ‘Circle to Search’ to Chrome.
- The feature is part of an updated Lens UI and lets you highlight any item on a web page.
- Currently, the updated Lens UI is still under works.
Inspired by the early success of Android’s Circle to Search feature, Google is working to bring a similar functionality to Chrome. To be sure, it won’t be called Circle to Search, although the Lens UI of which it will be a part works no differently.
First unearthed by Leopeva64 (X), the new Lens UI’s animation is exactly like Android’s Circle to Search feature.
(1/3) The new Lens UI in Chrome now has an animation that is similar to what you see when you activate Android’s “Circle to Search” (in case there was any doubt that this feature will be Chrome’s version of “Circle to Search”):https://t.co/XQGSzmicpt pic.twitter.com/NSXoILdoRT
— Leopeva64 (@Leopeva64) May 7, 2024
Clicking on the Lens icon in the toolbar will change the cursor into a cross hair that you can drag across the screen and select the items you wish to search. Once you’ve ‘circled’ or ‘highlighted’ with the bluish-purple overlay, the results of your search will be displayed in a separate window that slides from the right.
Currently, all the clips posted are only an early-look at the feature. It’s not possible, as of now, to enable this new and updated Lens UI feature, even in Chrome Canary. So it may be a while before the feature is ready and rolled out to the general user on Chrome’s stable build.
Given that Chrome has already brought a few AI features on Chrome, it may not be long before several other AI features like Circle to Search make their way to Chrome. Given the platform differences, these will naturally be implemented in ways that are conducive to PC browsers.
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