Google’s Goggles application has been making plenty of waves when it first came out. The augmented reality featured plenty of promised capabilities such as being able to identify thousands of everyday objects, landmarks and similar content. For the most part, it has been enjoyable and informative to use the app, giving users plenty of detail and relevant information regarding various things ranging from wine bottles to cars to houses for sale.
Now, Google has decided to increase the functionality of the AR app by allowing it to access the translation services of Google and the camera’s ability to read text –even those written in languages other than English. Google Goggles is now and instant translator and nothing is now as close to a real life science fiction gadget than an Android smart phone.
In terms of actual use, the new feature is simply magnificent. While it is not fully expanded yet in order to accommodate languages from Asia and other places, the fact that it is able to translate German, Italian, Spanish and many other European texts is already impressive. It is not hard to imagine that the number of supported languages would also grow significantly.
It will not be too long before many people will come to rely on the presence of AR technology. For now, it is used to handle the translation of languages. Pretty soon, we will be pointing the camera at a flat tire and it will be giving us arrows and pointers telling us which goes where –in at least 20 different languages of our choosing.
For now, the translation software is still pretty hard to rely on, as digital translation is often prone to problems. But with web translators such as Babelfish already setting the standard for grammatically incorrect translations, the output of Google Goggles is pretty much acceptable.
Tags: AR, Augmented-Reality, Google, Google-Goggles