Tag Archives: dictionary

Augmented reality-based instant translation? There’s an app for that.

This has to be the coolest app made for the iPhone yet.  Word Lens uses augmented reality to instantly translate printed words from one language to another.  It’s simple: Hold up your phone’s camera to a sign containing foreign words and the app will convert it to your native tongue on-the-fly.  This terse explanation doesn’t do the app justice; you’ve gotta watch the demonstration above to get the full effect.

An app so powerful has to have limits, right?  Word Lens only supports Spanish-to-English and English-to-Spanish translation for now and it cannot read very stylized fonts, handwriting, or cursive.  The demonstration shows the app working quite flawlessly; realistically there will be times when conversions are not 100% accurate so the developer (Quest Visual) allows users to manually type in words to find translations.  But here’s a plus: the app does not rely on network or Internet connectivity to make translations happen.

Word Lens is available now as a free download in the App Store; however you must pay $4.99 for an in-app purchase language pack to get things started.  It’s compatible with iPhone 4, 3GS, and the latest gen iPod touch.