Came across this neat app recently (recently bought by Google). Best part is that it works completely offline and exclusively uses the camera feature. You point the camera to a sign or perhaps a a strange looking product the supermarket shelf, and it replaces that text with an english translation right in the camera screen. It won't work as well with books or other small print but for simple signs and other labels with big letters it's neat!
More details here:
@ michael,
I downloaded it about a month ago to try on my travels this sept. Not that i will need it, but i will take it out and play with it for a while just to see how well it works.
a co worker showed it to me several months ago and i thought it was the cats meow. Now all they need to do is a real time voice translation.
happy trails.
@Michael-That is super-cool. I've got it downloaded and the languages for our next trip.
@Ray- there is a real time translator for use offline from Google too: Google Translate. You can download languages and it will translate text and voice and can speak back too. Not as practical as it sounds though, I don't think the UN is going to be letting go of their translation staff any time soon.
Also worth noting that Windows 8 is a couple years behind in many ways but also has a comparable solution for their devices including a similar "augmented reality" language lens and offline translator rolled in to one app Bing Translate.
@ Michael,
I just downloaded the google translate app. I will play with it in the next few days.
From what i have seen, my limited foreign languages leave something to be desired.
happy trails.
Wow! What a cool app! At first I was confused, I thought I had to buy the language packs because my in-app purchasing was disabled (for iPhone), but when I enabled it (settings/general/restrictions) I saw that all the language packs were free.
I just spent the last 15 minutes translating book covers, personal care items, and anything else with words big enough to translate. I can't believe it keeps words in generally the same font!
I also tested the reverse. While it definitely doesn't work well for books, I was able to get close enough to a list of German words in my dictionary and it translated them back in English. How fun!
