Google App Scans Meal Photos For Calorie Count

The technology could help people trying to watch their weight - but developers admit the science is not yet perfect.

A new Google app could be able to tell you how many calories is in your meal just by analyzing a photo of it.

Im2Calories uses advanced image-recognition technology to work out what food you're eating, and what the estimated calorie count adds up to.

The size of each piece of food is worked out by comparing it to the rest of the plate - and even condiments spotted by the app are included in the calorie calculations.

A report in Popular Science says that the app will learn over time, with users being asked to input food details for any items that the app cannot recognize.

Google research scientist Kevin Murphy said the calorie count could be off by up to 20%, but said the technology will improve the more times its used.

"If it only works 30% of the time, it's enough that people will start using it, we'll collect data, and it'll get better over time.

"To me it's obvious that people really want this and this is really useful.

"Ok fine, maybe we get the calories off by 20%. It doesn't matter.

"We're going to average over a week or a month or a year. And now we can start to potentially join information from multiple people and start to do population level statistics.

"I have colleagues in epidemiology and public health, and they really want this stuff."

The app cannot identify the attributes of particular ingredients, so if a low-fat alternative ingredient is used in a dish the app will likely overestimate the calories.

It is still in development and has not yet been released.