Day: February 8, 2017

Word Lens is an application that provides real time translations on your iOS device by using its camera.

Lost in translation?

Traveling to another country without speaking the language is nerve wracking. While Word Lens won’t teach you to speak a new language, it will enable you to read it at the very least. Word Lens uses your iOS device’s camera to detect text and automatically translate words and sentences on the fly.

Packs sold separately

While Word Lens is free, there are no language packs included. Instead, Word Lens lets users see how the application works by reversing or replacing words. While this is an impressive tech demo, it renders Word Lens useless without purchasing a language pack. Languages can be purchased within the app. As of this review, the  languages available are Spanish, Italian, French, German, Russian, and Portuguese.

There is a dictionary within the application to look up words that the app fails to translate properly or if you just want to find a word’s definition quickly, without using the camera. This is great feature but the definitions that it provided were a hit or miss.

Great for foreign trips

Word Lens is an impressive tech demo of what the program can actually do but it is a shame it doesn’t show you its translation prowess before deciding to purchase a language pack

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Word Lens is an app similar to something to my design, unfortunately the app was the bought out by google in 2014, and was integrated into google translate.

I want to use this technology in my app by using smartphone cameras optical camera recognition software, i believe with the more recent releases of phones, cameras will be able to give better and more accurate translations. This will make the TransPal a mix of both an augmented reality app and a conventional app. I think for my app I will also take the idea of locking certain translations packs that can be purchased, but the main languages like EU languages will be free of charge to use. This way the app will generate money alongside revenue for minor ads.

 

My idea for this project is to create an translation app, named TransPal, a on hand translation app readily available in any country and any smart phone.

The key idea for this project is that this app allows the use of the camera. By pointing your camera at a sign or poster, the app will search for key characters and letters with in the reticle of the camera and give a live translation of the app that is readable in english, this is the main feature of the app.

Other features of the app will, include a library of other languages selectable for the user to read through and find words they are looking for like that of a translation book. The third future of my app will include a text to speech option, you input the text in english and choose the language in which you wish for it to be translated into to, it will the read the translated text into that language so it doesn’t require you to know a full knowledge of the language of the country you are visiting. The app will be Free to both iPhone and android users and will generate money from ads to keep the app afloat.

This app will be a travel friendly app to native english speakers and will make a great companion for travellers and holiday goers, it will do away with the need for translation guides and make for a more accessible substitute.