All too often, science fiction provides us with a glimpse of a future where people often where visors or special scanners that would allow them to instantly identify and analyze the things within their visual range. The technology has long since been developed with the emergence of augmented reality, but it is still often surprising to realize the things that these cameras are now capable of.
Google has recently announced that its Goggles is now fully equipped with some high tech language translation module –or rather, feature (but module just sounds so good). Yep, you can whip out your Android handset, point it at the nearest graffiti in German and have the translation software tell you that what the text means in English –all in that much beloved auto-translation grammar that we know and love. Kidding aside, the technology is actually pretty reliable despite the fact that users will have to deal with the occasional odd translation of text.
It’s a bit rough right now and the number of languages it can translate is quite limited, but the fact that it exists is quite a big step. We already know that AR is capable of detecting and providing input on text content, so it was only a matter of time before the foreign language translations started becoming available. Still, getting to see this feature working on the Android is certainly a testament to how far the technology has gone.
What is even better is the fact that the feature will be present in Android 1.6 Donut and above, which means that even if you smart phone is not yet loaded with the latest Android update, you can still get to use the feature. For now, the service is able to detect and translate English, Italian, German, French, and Spanish. More languages are expected to be added later on.
Tags: Google, google-android, Google-Goggles