Google releases Cloud Vision API

Google on Wednesday announced the launch of the Cloud Vision application programming interface (API). As a tool for developers, the API can be used to add machine learning and image recognition to applications. Ultimately, the API could be applied to a range of devices - from robots to appliances - giving them the ability to see and understand the context of images.

In other words, a lot of future gadgets may at some point have the ability to identify your face when you walk into a room and react accordingly based on your expression.

With the Cloud Vision API, images are classified into thousands of categories in order to detect faces with associated emotions and to recognize printed words in various languages. The REST API can analyze images stored anywhere, or integrate with images stored on Google Cloud, Google said.

The API is available now in limited preview through the Google Cloud Platform, product manager Ram Ramanathan wrote.