Google have acquired Quest Visual, the company behind the popular translator app, Word Lens.
And the company is celebrating this by making the app and all the language packs for it, free for a limited time.
This is what they wrote at their website acknowledging the acquisition,
With Word Lens, we’ve seen the beginnings of what’s possible when we harness the power of mobile devices to “see the world in your language.”By joining Google, we can incorporate Quest Visual’s technology into Google Translate’s broad language coverage and translation capabilities in the future.
So what exactly does Word Lens do? All you have to do is point your phone’s camera to any printed word, and the app will translate the text to the language you have chosen to. Here are some images which show you how the app works. Incredible, huh?
These are the list of available language pairs:
- English ⇆ Russian
- English ⇆ Spanish
- English ⇆ French
- English ⇆ Italian
- English ⇆ German
- English ⇆ Portuguese
What is the future of the app, now that Google has acquired it? My guess, is that they will be implementing it for their own app, Google Goggles.
Download the Word Lens Translator app and grab the language packs while they are still free.
[appbox googleplay com.questvisual.wordlens.demo]
It is worth noting that the app is designed to work with signs, menus and other printed text, but does not recognise handwriting or stylized fonts.
via: BGR
