Tag Archives: translation

Word Lens – Translate Spanish to English Instantly on your iPhone

The Word Lens application is amazing, one of the best uses of augmented reality yet! word-lens-logo.pngYou just point it at a sign (or any text) and it removes the words that are there and superimposes the translation over the old text.

The program is free and if you want to test it out, it’s two translation modes: “erase the text” and “reverse the letters”, while not very useful, make a great demonstration. The Spanish-to-English dictionary is $9.99 (they also have English-to-Spanish for an additional $9.99).

spanish-sign-word-lens.jpg
Here’s the sign that was taped up that I wanted to read.

It’s not the best video, but I really wanted to demonstrate this in a real world example. And since in the middle of recording the video I realized it was time for my bus, it’s pretty real world…

You’ll want to make the video full screen to actually be able to read it (and maybe you’ll need to pause it to really see what’s going on).

As I said you’ll want to look at it full screen (in HD) or you won’t be able to see the action on the iPHone screeen, so be sure not to just watch the embedded version.

I forgot to mention, no internet connection is required to use it! Once you purchase a dictionary it’s on your device (I assume it runs on the iPod touch with the camera also), it’s actually got a “dictionary” where you can look up words.

UPDATE: Also available for Android devices and Glass.

UPDATE: Now they also have Russian, Portuguese, German, Italian, and French available. To be clear the program translates back and forth between English and the other languages, but does not translate between the other languages (yet!).

Lost in translation

So I was playing with the language translators on-line. I was trying to do a full conversion of my page to french and then back again so you could view the whole thing, but I had technical difficulties. So here’s the original paragraph and next to it that same paragraph converted to french and back to english. The third column is that translation from to spanish and back again.

English So I slept great last night. Lately, a good night’s sleep has been five or six hours, I haven’t even been able to sleep on my days off lately. I’m thinking I got around eleven hours sleep so I’m feeling pretty good today. I actually woke up in a panic around seven that the alarm didn’t go off and I was late for work. But once I realized that wasn’t the case I was able to get back to sleep for another five hours!!! :) English to French to English Thus I slept the great last night. Recently, a sleep of the good night was five or six hours, I could not even sleep my days with far recently. I think that I had around eleven hours sleep thus I smell very good today. I really awoke in a panic around seven that alarm did not go to far and I was late for work. But once that I realized who was not the case I could to obtain again with the sleep during five more hours!!! :) English to Spanish to English I slept yesterday so great at night. Lately, a dream of the good night has been five or six hours, I have not even been able to sleep lately in my days dull. I am thinking that I obtained eleven hours around I sleep so be feeling quite good today. I really woke up in a panic around seven that was not extinguished alarming and was slow for the work. ¡But once he made that it was not the case I could obtain of new to the dream by other five hours!!! :)

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