Machine Learning highlights replicas of comic book characters on Google Play Books.

Google has announced that Google Play Books now supports a feature called “Bubble Zoom”. Using machine learning, Bubble Zoom detects callouts in comics. Algorithms based on the object recognition technology in photographs independently determine the actual replicas of the characters and highlight them so that the user can observe the correct sequence in the process of reading.


The Justice League Vol.1 (2011) comic book page with the Bubble Zoom feature.

Callouts will open without affecting the main picture. This allows you to see the entire page without compromising readability. You can move between the callouts simply by clicking on them or using the volume buttons.

The announcement of the application took place in the framework of the festival Comic-Con 2016 in San Diego. Bubble Zoom is already available in Google Play Books for Android (IOS version will be released later). Now the new application is in the “technical preview” state, but the Marvel and DC comics in English (about 2,800 comics from Google Play) are already supported by it. Google hopes that in the end it will be easy to read “all existing comics and manga” with this feature.


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