Google Goggles V1.1 Translates
Google through its battalions of engineers and application developers have been in fervent development of its many search features. The most recent of which was a redesign of its homepage and the addition of a fully functioning navigation and results filtering side panel. Off the heels of this announcement, the search engine giant also revealed an even more useful feature for version 1.1 of its visual search technology Google Goggles: the ability to translate text.
Google Goggle’s translation in action |
Officially launched in December of last year, Google Goggles was initially offered to users of the Android mobile operating system and allows you to basically conduct visual searches with the use of the mobile phone’s built-in cameras. Detailed information about the subject of your photo will then be sent to your phone seconds after running it through the mobile app.
“The opportunity to immerse yourself in a different culture can give you a new perspective.” the announcement stated on the Google Mobile blog as posted by Software Engineers Alessandro Bissacco and Avi Flamholz, “However, it can be hard to fully enjoy the experience if you do not understand the local language. For example, ordering food from a menu you can not read can be an adventure.”
With the recently announced translation feature, you would be able to take a picture of a written text (the legible kind, mind you) and translate it. To use, you must first point the camera to the written text you need to translate, draw a box around it using the region of interest button and after you’ve hit the shutter button, select the source and destination languages.
First previewed during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year, the Goggles translation prototype only recognized text in German. Now that it’s been polished and officially rolled out, it can also read English, French, Italian and Spanish and can be translated to many more languages with the goal of eventually being able to read non-Latin based scripts like Chinese, Hindi and Arabic.
Other features and enhancements on Goggles v1.1 include an improved barcode recognition, tweaked graphic user interface, a larger body of recognized artworks (perhaps as a results of last month’s Plink acquisition) and an expansion of recognized products and logos. You also get the capability to run the pre-existing images in the phone’s gallery through the app to conduct visual searches.
Google Goggles v1.1 supports devices helmed by Android 1.6 (Donut) and 2.0 (Eclair) and will also be available for the upcoming 2.2 (FroYo) and the supposed v2.6 (Gingerbread). To grab, just scan the QR code to the right or troop on over to the Android Market.
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RSpears @ May 6, 2010
