According to a report by WABetaInfo, the messaging app is developing the Search Image option to let the user search an image he received or sent in the chat directly from Google. To search for the image, the user needs to select the image which he wants to search, then he can use Google to search more about the image. The image is then uploaded to the search engine which then searches for relevant and similar images and other details. The user will then be shown the results about the image. The report also mentions that the new feature isn’t available yet but it would be coming to the Android platform in near future. There is also a possibility that WhatsApp would use the Google’s API (Application Programming Interface) to enable the image search function. The new feature would be a part of WhatsApp’s initiative towards banning and stopping the spread of fake news on its platform.
The Search Image feature of WhatsApp is different from the Advanced Search feature that the messaging app was testing on the iOS beta app. The Advanced Search lets the user search for multiple types of messages other than media. The types of messages include photos, GIFs, links, audio, video and documents. Also, as mentioned above, the beta version 2.19.73 of WhatsApp is adding a transgender flag to its list of emojis. The flag comes after the LGBT flag which WhatsApp added to its platform earlier. The transgender flag could be found between the UN flag and the LGBT flag. The beta version of WhatsApp could be downloaded from Google Play Store if the user is part of the beta testing programme.
