Google has announced six new features and developments to help people gather and explore information in new ways.

Taiwo Kola-Ogunlade, the spokesperson for West Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, said this in a statement on Thursday in Lagos.

Mr Kola-Ogunlade said the new features leveraging machine learning would help people gather information in new ways.

He highlighted the six new features as multi-search, multi-search near me, translation in the blink of an eye, Google for iOS updates, even faster ways to find what one is looking for and new ways to explore information.

Mr Kola-Ogunlade disclosed that people use the lens to answer over eight billion questions monthly.

“With multi-search, you can take a picture or use a screenshot and then add text to it – similar to the way you might naturally point at something and ask a question about it.

“Multisearch is available in English globally and will now be rolling out in 70 languages in the next few months,” he said.

For multi-search, the Google spokesperson said it enables users to take screenshots of an item and find it nearby.

“So, if you have a hankering for your favourite local dish, all you need to do is screenshot it, and Google will connect you with nearby restaurants serving it,” he explained.

According to him, in translation, in the blink of an eye, one of the most powerful aspects of visual understanding is its ability to break down language barriers.

“Google has gone beyond translating text to translating pictures – with Google translating text in images over one billion times monthly in more than 100 languages,” Mr Kola-Ogunlade said.

He said with major advancements in machine learning, Google is now able to blend translated text into complex images.

“Google has also optimised their machine learning models to do all this in just 100 milliseconds — shorter than the blink of an eye,” Mr Kola-Ogunlade added.