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Word Lens Offers Real Time Language Translation

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MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,471
30,691



035316-wordlens_500.jpg

Last night, QuestVisual has released an eye-catching iOS app called Word Lens. Word Lens is an augmented reality app for the iPhone and iPod Touch (with video camera) which offers real time translation of text. You simply point your device's video camera at a sign and the program translates and superimposes the translated text onto the video in real time. The demo video shows it in action:


Word Lens is a free download to prove its real-time word detection algorithms. In the free version, users can reverse or blank-out text in real time. Meanwhile language packs for Spanish to English and English to Spanish are available for $4.99 each. More language packs are in the works. Translations are done on a word-by-word basis, so context is not taken into account. The translation is also done on-app, so no network connection is required.

Augmented Reality has been a much hyped possibility. Apple introduced the ability for developers to do this real-time video manipulation back in iOS 3.1.

Article Link: Word Lens Offers Real Time Language Translation
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/12/17/word-lens-offers-real-time-ios-language-translation/
S

svalentine

macrumors regular
Apr 29, 2007
182
0
Tokyo, Japan
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

Awesome!!!! Japanese to English and I will buy!!
 
M

macnisse

macrumors 6502
Jun 26, 2010
395
1
Babel

Nice, that is very close to a real Babel fish... just add spoken language of choice to that, sweet! :)
 
F

Fel08

macrumors newbie
Oct 30, 2009
12
0
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Holy crap. That's freaking brilliant.
 
Stampyhead

Stampyhead

macrumors 68020
Sep 3, 2004
2,294
30
London, UK
Really cool use of this technology. Hopefully over time their translation engine will become more contextual, like Google translate. Word for word translation is only minimally useful in real life application.
 
efp1

efp1

macrumors 6502
Oct 3, 2008
337
22
UK
I'm impressed by the augmented reality but this app is pretty useless, considering that their translations are the worst I have ever seen. The Spanish is extremely bad, hardly understandable. They even wrote the signs in Spanish incorrectly so that the English translation could be readable.
 
D

dazzer21

macrumors 6502
Oct 18, 2005
473
4
Well, that's got to be one of the most impressive things I've seen for a while! Who cares if the translation isn't 100% - as long as it says what the sign means, THAT'S GREAT!!!!! Extraordinarily great, in my view...
 
japanime

japanime

macrumors 68030
Feb 27, 2006
2,916
4,844
Japan
dazzer21 said:
Well, that's got to be one of the most impressive things I've seen for a while! Who cares if the translation isn't 100% - as long as it says what the sign means, THAT'S GREAT!!!!! Extraordinarily great, in my view...
Click to expand...

But that's the problem — the Spanish on the signs in the video is not correct to begin with.

Kudos to the developers for trying, though. Once they have refined this technology, it truly will be great.
 
W

wschutz

macrumors 6502
Jun 5, 2007
295
106
Well... given the screenshots... and being a native Spanish speaker... I would say the translator is making some serious (but basic) gramatical mistake...

Perhaps QuestVisual would like to revise the translation engine...
 
Journojulz

Journojulz

macrumors 65816
Oct 6, 2008
1,077
4
All i need now is a bluetooth headset in the shape of a little yellow fish!

Sweet!

If you don't think this is a fail because the translation is a bit wonky - get an imagination!
 
freddiecable

freddiecable

macrumors 6502a
May 16, 2003
656
196
Sweden
:D spot-on!

this thing is really amazing! iphone is not only changing the mobile phone industry. it is changing many industries - peoples perceptions of interacting with machines will be measured before and after iphone (iOS).

AAPLaday said:
Who needs a camera on an iPad ? :rolleyes: :p
Click to expand...
 
Lesser Evets

Lesser Evets

macrumors 68040
Jan 7, 2006
3,527
1,294
Stampyhead said:
Really cool use of this technology. Hopefully over time their translation engine will become more contextual, like Google translate. Word for word translation is only minimally useful in real life application.
Click to expand...

The finesse of language and translation within computers is still very basic and rough. Google translate, and all translation software/sites, is still horrid, but it is far better than nothing.

Grammar check within a native language is still completely crazy. Half the noted corrections are incorrect assumptions by the programming, and several times more errors are uncaught. So it'll take time to get stuff like this program working well.

For $5, it's not bad if you go somewhere and want to make sure you stop at the stop sign and watch for falling bricks.
 
baryon

baryon

macrumors 68040
Oct 3, 2009
3,877
2,924
Amazing! And no network connection = it works when you need it on an iPod Touch, instead of "it never works because you first need to connect to the special login screen of the strange Wi-Fi if you're lucky enough to have a free one near you".
 
Popeye206

Popeye206

macrumors 68040
Sep 6, 2007
3,148
836
NE PA USA
I don't care if it's 100%, something like this would be a valuable tool to have with you when traveling. Big thumbs up and I'm sure it will get better over time.
 
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