I’ve blogged, before, about Google Goggles, a feature that Google have rolled out to Android phones, which lets you snap a pic of something, and find out info about it. Like with a painting, for example: snap a photo, Google tells you who painted it. Or a barcode: snap a pic of it, Google will tell you where you can buy the item it relates to, near you.
Google Goggles really does have the potential to be one of the most useful mobile apps the world’s ever seen, and according to Google’s official blog, it’s just got that little bit more useful.
Y’see, now, Goggles can also translate text into other languages.
What I presume they’ve done is bunged a load of text recognition software in Goggles, and plugged it into their own translation tools. At the minute, Goggles can read English, French, Italian, German and Spanish, and can translate that text into a whole host of other languages, and they’re planning to include even more languages in future, including the other Latin-based ones, before eventually including ones that don’t use the same characters, like Chinese, Hindi and Arabic. And that will be a very, very useful tool.
I’m so impressed that I’ll say it will still be a very useful tool, even with the humorous grammar you usually get from Google-translated text…
But anyway, just picture it: you’re in a posh French restaurant, to impress a really classy bloke/lady (delete as applicable), but the problem is you’re not massively fluent in French. And then you find out the menu is only in French (‘cos we all know what the French are like; seriously, I love the French, and I think they have one of the nicest countries on Earth, packed with art and beauty and culture… but they can be a bit spiky, and a bit, well, French).
So, you whip out your HTC Desire, snap a pic of the menu with Goggles, and find out that l’escargots means snails, and save yourself having to eat something that’s made of 93,000% mucus. Seriously, France, snails. Why? Frog’s legs are alright (actually, frog’s legs are really rather nice), but gastropods? Still, at least you made up for it by having chocolate bread for breakfast. I can forgive you anything for inventing that.
Anyway, yes, sorry, I went a bit off-topic there didn’t I?
Google Goggles. now even more useful than before. If you’ve got an Android phone, like the aforesaid HTC Desire or even a Nexus One, get it downloaded and let us know how good it is.
And now I’m off to watch the alternative election night coverage on Channel 4, ‘cos it’s got David Mitchell and Charlie Brooker in it, and those two are as gods amongst men, especially when it comes to ranting and taking the mickey…
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