So you’re traveling across Europe, haven’t had time to learn all the languages, and find yourself in front of a sign that reads DANGER in English, but the rest is in another language. Now, you can just take out your Android-based cell phone, snap a photo, and highlight the portion you need. The Google Goggles app will evaluate the text and translate it into your preferred language with internet speed. Pretty cool, huh?
Google Googles is an Android-specific application that has been available since last year. The original use was to let people take pictures of objects with their mobile phones that could then be used to search the Web. For example, taking a picture of a monument or painting to search Google for information about it.
Thursday’s new addition to the service allows a user to take a picture of a snippet of text using their mobile phone and then run it through Google’s free translation service to decipher its meaning. As Google writes in a blog post, a simple scenario for this application could take place when ordering food from a menu that is written in a language you can’t read.
The service can currently read English, French, Italian, German and Spanish, but can translate texts into several other languages. Google also said it plans to extend the text recognition feature to work with other “Latin-based languages,” and it eventually hopes to read Chinese and Arabic.
While some media coverage has compared it to a sci-fi universal translator others have suggested that maybe you shouldn’t rely upon it too much. Just to be on the safe side, don’t give up on phrase books and language lessons just yet.