Google Buys Visual Translation App 'Word Lens', Makes It Free for Limited Time

[RiddlaBronc]

Just got it and i must say its awesome!
On my iphone i had to download the languages individually while they were included on my android. Pretty cool none the less#

 

[Crichton333]

I got this app when it first came out. Man, it's been so long. Nice to get the packs.

And I'm glad to see Google bought it. What took them so long?

It's great technology.

I agree, every now and then I remember first using it and think "that was so awesome"

 

[blevins321]

This is the coolest app I've seen in my entire life.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I wonder if anyone who thinks this is the coolest app ever have tried using it in a real world situation. It's interesting tech, but it needs a lot of work to be really useful.

 

[Vanilla35]

Maybe he is saying it's too bad that Google bought it because apple should have bought them out first. Which would mean kntegration into the camera app etc. now we just can dream and see if they make the app android only from here on in.

I bet they will put it into Android. Why else would they have bought it? Google is all about putting useful features into Android's software. However a lot of them don't appeal to the vast majority of people. If the feature appeals to ~40-60% of consumers they'll add it. For apple, it seems like they only add a feature if 80%+ people would use it.

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[lk400]

Google Translate does not work offline.

Sorry I wasn't saying this program is useless, just it would be much more important if it did more non roman characters.

 

[C DM]

Sorry I wasn't saying this program is useless, just it would be much more important if it did non roman characters.

Got to start somewhere, and usually with things that have higher likelihood of working properly while still being useful.

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I wonder if anyone who thinks this is the coolest app ever have tried using it in a real world situation. It's interesting tech, but it needs a lot of work to be really useful.

It works in real world situations. It's not perfect (and really not much out there is), but it's fairly good.

 

[Zxxv]

Great app. Didnt know about it at all. Shared the story with a few people I know will use it. I would have paid for this if I'd known about it because its one of those wow holly crap technology is amazing moments. Well done to the people who designed it. You make our world better

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I bet they will put it into Android. Why else would they have bought it? Google is all about putting useful features into Android's software. However a lot of them don't appeal to the vast majority of people. If the feature appeals to ~40-60% of consumers they'll add it. For apple, it seems like they only add a feature if 80%+ people would use it.

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You don't have to be a fanboy to enjoy looking at macrumors. 9to5mac has great content on both Google and Apple - for comparison.

The trouble with 9to5mac is it looks **** in comparison to macrumours. Sure the content is there but the layout on macbook and iPhone is poor in comparison to macrumours who have it so right and don't even think about comparing the forums.

macrumours is way more pleasing on the eye and thats important.

 

[IJ Reilly]

It works in real world situations. It's not perfect (and really not much out there is), but it's fairly good.

It's a long way from perfect in my experience. I find it struggles mightily to give you more than a few words at a time, and that's only if the text you are translating is quite clear, and you can hold the iPhone or iPad very steady. Even so the accuracy isn't very good and the words it comes up with can be hilariously wrong.

 

[C DM]

It's a long way from perfect in my experience. I find it struggles mightily to give you more than a few words at a time, and that's only if the text you are translating is quite clear, and you can hold the iPhone or iPad very steady. Even so the accuracy isn't very good and the words it comes up with can be hilariously wrong.

Works fairly well for things like signs and the like, which seems to be the kind of thing it was meant for (at least the main scenario behind it). As far as translations, they can be a bit off at times one the sense that for the most part each word is done separately without specifically being able to get more context from multiple words and phrases tofether, which would be somewhat complex for something like this I'd imagine.

 

[Parasprite]

Why? I'm sure the developers are thrilled to be financially set for life.

I think they may be remembering projects like Bumptop which were taken down and nothing really happened with them yet (consumer-wise), particularly for desktop in this case.

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The trouble with 9to5mac is it looks **** in comparison to macrumours. Sure the content is there but the layout on macbook and iPhone is poor in comparison to macrumours who have it so right and don't even think about comparing the forums.

macrumours is way more pleasing on the eye and thats important.

Never really been to 9to5mac but MR has a pretty generic forum look—can't really give them much points one way or the other.

 

[Snookerman]

So it offers free in-app purchases? I don't think I've seen that before.

 

[C DM]

So it offers free in-app purchases? I don't think I've seen that before.

Yup.

 

[NightFox]

As Google already has translation services that cover a much wider range of languages, I'm hoping that we'll now see most if not all of them offered as additional (free?) language packs for Word Lens - the Nordic languages would be a big help for me for starters. The text recognition is already there in the core app, so I guess the language packs are just pure translation dictionaries

 

[Zxxv]

Russian language must be useful, but Portuguese, Spanish, French are of limited use for English speakers. With some light study you can work out these languages fairly easily for basic understanding, and if you don't have the time for this, then you can type the words in to google translate. Sure this removes that step (when it works) but it would have real value if it translated languages with non roman letters like Chinese, Korean, Japanese etc. For those who can't read those scripts, there is no option for printed material. In that case this app would be more than a mere convenience and would add true value.

I think its useful as an aid to learning. Fun aswell. But the real point is google bought it, google has google glass = Auto translate in real time.

 

[MalcolmJID]

Russian language must be useful, but Portuguese, Spanish, French are of limited use for English speakers. With some light study you can work out these languages fairly easily for basic understanding, and if you don't have the time for this, then you can type the words in to google translate. Sure this removes that step (when it works) but it would have real value if it translated languages with non roman letters like Chinese, Korean, Japanese etc. For those who can't read those scripts, there is no option for printed material. In that case this app would be more than a mere convenience and would add true value.

Cyrillic is non-roman and that's what Russian uses.

 

[Intelligent]

Apple should have gotten it , would be nice to have it built into the camera. I wonder how much it costed buying, and what did the app cost before this? Was it a lot? I picked it up for free now so thanks MacRumors.

 

[nick_elt]

Google Translate does not work offline.

.???? Really? I use it offline all the time on android.

 

[haruhiko]

.???? Really? I use it offline all the time on android.

Then unfortunately Google made it not work offline on iOS :-(

 

[tevion5]

This app is amazing! I haven't been this impressed by a piece of software in a long time!

 

[OneMike]

I remember when this app first came out. Good for them.

 

[springsup]

Just downloaded it. This was the very first thing I tried. How many millions did they pay for this?

 

[Kissaragi]

Nice, hope they add in more languages soon.

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Russian language must be useful, but Portuguese, Spanish, French are of limited use for English speakers. With some light study you can work out these languages fairly easily for basic understanding, and if you don't have the time for this, then you can type the words in to google translate. Sure this removes that step (when it works) but it would have real value if it translated languages with non roman letters like Chinese, Korean, Japanese etc. For those who can't read those scripts, there is no option for printed material. In that case this app would be more than a mere convenience and would add true value.

I could wash my clothes without a washing machine too. I like making things easier!

 

[C DM]

Just downloaded it. This was the very first thing I tried. How many millions did they pay for this?

You expected meaningless company and/or product names to be translated or to be translated correctly (when they have no translation to begin with)?

 

[groovyd]

we need something like this for voice too where it on the fly figures out whatever language someone is speaking and then with a button press translates it into any other language and repeats it.