Yes, we're still alive and kicking!

From the frequency of our blog posts, it would be fair for you to assume we’d picked up and moved to Antarctica, thereby limiting our internet access, and, in turn, our ability to let you know what we’re currently up to. Surprisingly, that’s not the case, and we are still in San Francisco and we do have internets and we have been working–not only on bug fixes and feature additions to Delicious Library 2, but on some brand new projects both for Mac and for iOS.

Just a couple weeks ago we released Noogle Noggles for iPhone–a Google Goggles client which allows you to do a visual search just by snapping a picture with your iPhone. You take the picture, we send the picture to Goggles for processing, and then we tell you what it is you took a picture of. Pretty cool, huh? Right now Noggles isn’t hooked up to Delicious Library 2 as an input system, but we think it definitely has some potential.

In addition to Noggles, we have a couple other projects up our sleeves that we can’t wait to share with you. Not only are we analyzing all your feedback about Delicious Library 2 to try to make an even better product, but we’re working on another completely new project that you don’t even know you need, but you do. Take our word for it!

Last but not least, our number one project right now is getting iSight scanning for late-model iMacs working. We recognize this is a huge problem with Delicious Library 2 at the moment, and it’s one that we’re working to fix before everything else. In late 2008, Apple changed the iSight cameras that went into iMac computers, making them focus much further away than the other iMac and laptop iSights. On top of that, the iMac screens are so ginormous, that they emit tons of light, and that light means glare on the item you’re trying to scan. We tried a number of things to try to work around these issues, including using the edge of the iSight’s light of sight to focus, turning down the brightness on monitor while the scanning window was open, and completely re-writing the scanning algorithm altogether. You’ve said it’s still not good enough, and we agree with you. Recently we’ve made some breakthroughs which we hope will fix the problem, so please bear with us as we try to get that new code available for you to test in yet another beta. We’re sincerely sorry for the frustration that many iMac users have faced, and please rest assured we’re doing everything we can to resolve the issue to everyone’s satisfaction.

Noogle our Noggle!

We get hundreds of emails a day, many of which are from you requesting new features, and one of the top requested features happens to be the ability to scan stuff into your Delicious Library from your iPhone. Sure, we sell a bluetooth scanner that allows you to scan barcodes, but you think it would be cool to be able to scan with your phone, and we agree with you!

Enter our newest iPhone app: Noogle Noggles–an experiment Google Goggles client!

Noogle Noggles allows you to identify an item by taking a picture of the item on your iPhone. That’s pretty much it. Snap a picture of the cover a book and BAM!, it tells you which book it is. Same with your favorite games, movies, household items, barcodes, and more. It won’t identify everything though. If you take a picture of your cat, Mr. Flufferson, it’s not going to know it’s Fluffy–unless you managed to get Fluffy into Google’s product database, which is where the info is coming from.

Why did I call it experimental? Well right now Noogle Noggles isn’t hooked up to Delicious Library 2. So if you take a picture of your favorite Pioneer Speakers, it should identify them, but after that there’s no way to add them directly to your library on your Mac.

Why not? Because Noogle Noggles is only experimental. We’re playing with the interface and how the search functionality works, to make sure it’s really going to be a pleasure for you to use and a true asset to Delicious Library. We took Google’s Goggle interface and simplified it–making it extremely easy to use. We ditched the forward and back arrows that Goggles makes you use in order to scan a new item, opting instead to keep everything on one screen so that you never have to stop scanning. So go ahead, try it out, and let us know what you think.