How Google is teaching computers to see

Google's Hartmut Neven demonstrates his visual-search app by snapping a picture of a Salvador Dali clock in his office building. Google and other tech companies are racing to improve image-recognition software Computers can recognize some objects in images, but not all Google's engineering director predicts the technology will fully mature in 10 years Google's engineering director predicts the technology will fully mature in 10 years Santa Monica, California (CNN) -- Computers used to be blind, and now they can see. Thanks to increasingly sophisticated algorithms, computers today can recognize and identify the Eiffel Tower, the Mona Lisa or a can of Budweiser. Still, despite huge technological strides in the last decade or so, visual search has plenty more hurdles to clear. At this point, it would be quicker to describe the types of things an image-search engine can interpret instead of what it can't.