Google announced some improvements to Google Goggles for Android with a new update it’s made available for all Android devices – version 1.7.

The new features include: continuous mode, improved text recognition, and contributed results.

“Continuous mode is a quick and easy new way to use Goggles,” says Google software engineer David Petrou. “You can now get results instantly without having to take a picture – no shutter press required! Goggles will scan the scene continuously so you don’t need to worry about taking multiple pictures. The new continuous mode works best with books, products, artwork, and landmarks. Snapshot mode is still available, and has some tricks that aren’t in continuous mode yet, including translating text and adding a contact. Also, images recognized in continuous mode sessions won’t show up in your Goggles Search History, so if you’d like to refer back to something, such as a painting in a gallery you should use snapshot mode.”

“Starting today, when Goggles recognizes a portion of text, you’ll get results that have a close match to the text you’ve scanned,” he continues. “Let’s say you’re reading a magazine article you really like and want to share it with your friends. Just point Goggles at a part of the page, and instantly find a link to an online version to share immediately or read again later. You won’t even need the entire article in the frame. Goggles will also pull up more information from pages around the web where that text is mentioned, so its easier to learn about what you’re seeing.”

In terms of user contributions, Google says hundreds of thousands of submissions have already been made to Google Goggles. With the update, if you suggest a better result for something, it could become a result for the next user who searches for a similar object, the company says.

Not much more info is given on how this is policed for abuse.

Note: the continuous mode doesn’t work in versions of Android older than 2.3.