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All posts tagged "translation"


Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Word Lens Augmented Reality Translation App Released for Android

Posted by Craig Horlacher in "Android Software" @ 09:30 AM

http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/0...eptic-hands-on/

"The beauty of an app like Word Lens is it is really fast to use since it uses the camera and updates the image live. It also completely replaces words it sees instead of just adding overlays, all while trying to match the same font, color, background, and text size."

This looks like a pretty amazing app to me and one of the most practical uses of augmented reality I've seen. Watch the video above and see what you think. It actually replaces text you would otherwise see through the camera of your phone with the text in the language of your choice. Right now they offer Italian, Spanish, and French. Everything is done locally so no network connection needed. You basically pay $5 per language pack.

Check out the Hands-On mini-review after the break for more demonstrations and information.


Thursday, April 12, 2012

Google Currents 1.1 Translates and has Off-Line Reading

Posted by Craig Horlacher in "Android Software" @ 10:00 AM

http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/11/...upport-offline/

"Google has today rolled out version 1.1 of [Currents] for Android and iOS, which makes the service available worldwide with support for 44 languages, and adds a number of other improvements including the ability to select which editions have images for offline reading, instant online sync, translation for 38 languages and a promised 7X performance boost."

I haven't used Google Currents but it looks like a great app. I may have to try it out! The fact that it does translation is cool and off-line reading could be just what some WiFi tablet owners are looking for! It's free on the Play Store and supports phone or tablet form factors.


Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Google Universal Translator for Android May Not be Far Off

Posted by Craig Horlacher in "Android Talk" @ 04:00 AM

http://gizmodo.com/5801247/google-c...sal-translation

"One of the things high on Google's to-do list was translation, rendering the billions of words appearing online into the native language of any user in the world. By 2001, Google.com was already available in twenty-six languages. Page and Brin believed that artificial barriers such as language should not stand in the way of people's access to information."

About six months ago I had a network storage device loose its configuration for some reason. The default language wasn't English or anything similar. I was a little worried when I couldn't understand anything in the web interface and didn't know how I would change it back. But I was using Chrome at the time and I noticed a notification pop up at the top. Chrome was telling me it didn't think this page was in my native language and it offered to translate it for me. I chose yes and Chrome turned it all into English. It may not have been a perfect translation but from what I remember it was very good and it made it pretty easy for me to find the option to change the language back to English.

That's just one example of how Google is very serious about language translation and how that fact has already helped me out. Gizmodo has a great article about how and why Google got so serious about translation. With resources available to Google they have been able to do some amazing things with translation even related to languages they don't have native speakers of. The Google Translate app for Android is evidence of their work and the fact that a real universal translator may be possible one day. I would love to hear what you think about the article. Are you excited about the possibilities or scared of computers becoming too "smart"?


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