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Pow! Bam! Google uses its AI to bring visual punch to digital comic books.

Squinters rejoice.

by Mark Bergen
Bubble Zoom in Google Books.
Bubble Zoom in Google Books.
Bubble Zoom in Google Books.
| Google

Are you tired of hearing that Google loves machine learning and wants to put it in every product it touches?

No? Good.

Because they do. And the latest insertion is a neat visual trick to make it easier to read comic books within the Google Play Books app. Unfurled at Comic-Con International, it’s called Bubble Zoom and does just that — zooms in on text bubbles in comics with one touch.

Last fall, Google introduced new mobile formats for digital comics, an attempt to get more comics readers, a devotee-heavy group, spending time and money within Google’s digital media store.

It came shortly after Google acquired a small e-books outfit, which some, us included, speculated meant it would be going more aggressively after Amazon in the subscription market. That has yet to pan out.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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