An article about Google’s image-searching patent from Duncan Riley at TechCrunch this morning:

A patent application lodged by Google in July 2007 but recently made public seeks to patent a method where by robots (computers) can read and understand text in images and video [...] I may be stating the blatantly obvious when I say that if Google has found a way to index text in static images and video this is a great leap forward in the progression of search technology.

Well, I don’t know if it’s “obvious” but Microsoft’s OneNote 2007 has had this technology already in place for a while.

Here’s me using Windows+S to copy the TechCrunch page into OneNote:

Then I right-click and select “Make Text in Image Searchable”, specifying English as my language of choice:

Then I can search for “Duncan Riley” and get the results highlighted within the body of the image itself:

It really is amazing technology, and has been out for a while now. Give it a try!