5 ms·

Google Translate for Android Now Works With Photos

49 points by aritraghosh007 14y ago

c0nsumer 14y ago
This is one reason why I wish the Nexus 7 had a rear-facing camera.
- zalew 14y ago
  it's wifi only, so it would be useless anyway in most travels.
mtgx 14y ago
Would it be possible to make this functionality available offline? I figure devices are powerful enough today to not experience too big of a delay when translating images, but I assume the engine would need quite a bit of storage? When you travel you need something like this offline, not online.
- bigiain 14y ago
  The alternative is to make it much easier to arrange a wireless data connection (at reasonable prices) went traveling. I hate trying to find my way around somewhere unfamiliar knowing I've got a smartphone in my pocket, but it hit a data connection to be able to use Googlemaps. That goes double for places where signs aren't even written in a script I can recognize (like Bangkok, for a recent example - Google goggles and gps mapping is _really_ helpful there.)
- simcop2387 14y ago
  Actually I'm not sure if devices are powerful enough to do this easily today. The image processing to do OCR and a number of other things they likely do to get it right (they likely have a different OCR engine for every language, so each image would be done a number of times to determine which language OCR'd the best). along with that The storage issue you mention and then also likely a ram issue are the biggest factors. I'm not sure that this can reasonably be done on a phone still. Now a modern laptop could likely handle all of this, though it still wouldn't be as useful as if your phone could do it on it's own.
- georgemcbay 14y ago
  I think the problem is more storage than power. I don't know exactly how Google Translate works but I've heard it uses human translated information as a corpus in an attempt to get natural-sounding translations (as opposed to the goofy old babelfish type translations). Eg. Someone is translating something from Russian to English. They'll look back into their history of web pages which have human-translated Russian and English versions to see if any phrases in Russian match what they are actively translating and if they do, they'll attempt to incorporate the human-created English translation of that into their translation. The data allowing for this must be absolutely huge. Having said that I'm sure they could do an offline version which didn't use the fancy human-translated corpus data and just gave you the crappy babelfish-style translation, which in a lot of real-world situations is good enough to get the gist.
- scosman 14y ago
  Bing launched this a while ago, with fully local translations. Each language pack is about 30MB. OCR and translation are local, and the translation is fairly good (not just a simple dictionary lookup). http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/2cb7cda1-17d8-df11-a844-00237de2db9e http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/2cb7cda1-17d8-df11-a8...
zhuzhuor 14y ago
Youdao dictionary Android app has the similar function to translate the word in live camera long time ago. You can check the last screenshot in the app page https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.youdao.dict&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.youdao.dic...
barista 14y ago
Wow. Didn't know Google translate didn't have this feature until now. That is something Bing on Windows phone could do for almost a year now... Nice feature. Useful if you travel a lot.
- mtgx 14y ago
  I think the functionality was available in Google Goggles before.
iag 14y ago
Google, p-p-please make it available for iOS. Come on, make love, not war.
- zalew 14y ago
  remember all those ios-first apps android users had to wait months for? karma is a bitch. :)
  - pmelendez 14y ago
    Windows phone translator app from Microsoft does the same thing and works very good... Probably there is a third party app on iOS that does the same thing.
  - shinratdr 14y ago
    To be fair this is exactly the same as it has always been. Google provides exclusive features for its services via private APIs that only Android can use. Everyone else has to use the public API, including Apple. As a result Google-developed applications for their services that can utilize those private APIs are better than the Apple-developed programs that hook into Google services. The good "iOS first" or "iOS exclusive" apps still are and still launch that way. Google services have always been different story. Just like Gmail before it and Maps before that, Google has no problem acting fair and while slowly and deliberately widening the gap between their private API and their public one. Recently it bit them in the ass and they lost iOS mapping which brings in plenty of real advertising revenue. I'm not sure doing it again with your core business, search, is such a great idea. It's worth keeping in mind who is really being hit by karma here. When Google shafts iOS like that, it cost them more money than anyone else. It really is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
    - yohui 14y ago
      I'm not sure I understand your response to zalew. You have an issue with how Google's private APIs are better than their public APIs, and argue that ultimately this hurts Google most, right? While that's a fine point, what does this have to do with how Google has released its own apps on iOS before Android in the past? EDIT: The iOS Maps controversy aside, I'm also not sure why Google Translate getting an update on Android would impact Google's "core business" of search.
Kartificial 14y ago
Have been playing around with this feature and notice that there is a clear boundary when it comes to performance. It comes down to the size of the letters. If you scan a lot of letters it does recognize the words, but the letter recognition turns out to be poor. As soon as you zoom in a bit the performance will improve drastically. All in all, neat feature :)
guelo 14y ago
World Lens is able to do this real-time on live video. But like many startups the big boy's "everything is free" philosophy is going to hurt their business model.
- mootothemax 14y ago
  World Lens is able to do this real-time on live video. Not for Polish, they're not. They also sadly don't support my beaten-up old ZTE Blade. Google translate has them beaten for both. Edit: regarding the "everything is free" philosophy, I would glady pay for Word Lens. If it ran on my phone. And supported Polish. Neither of which I see as being terribly likely in the future. goes on rant about how much I'd pay for a Polish lexicon in a format I can run some fun statistics against
mootothemax 14y ago
This is fantastic - I tried it just now for Polish => English, and the interface is very good, letting you highlight parts of the image that you want translated. Until now, when I've found a notice that makes no sense to me, I've resorted to taking a photo and then translating with a dead-tree dictionary once I got home. This app is going to make it a lot more difficult not to give in to temptation and cheat with Google. Whilst Google's Polish translations are pretty bad, they do the job for translating random verbs, which give you enough. Something about using sitting down with a paper dictionary helps the words stay in my head though.
- peterwwillis 14y ago
  With technology, nobody ever needs to retain information ever again. It's just a Google away.
  - mootothemax 14y ago
    With technology, nobody ever needs to retain information ever again. It's just a Google away. That's a different - although interesting - discussion. You get so much more from learning a language than just retaining information. I'd liken it to learning the piano; whilst plenty of people are happy to press a button and hear sounds come out, sometimes it's really nice to sit down and play, you know? :)
mitjak 14y ago
I'd actually recommend the salmon just below the ham on the menu ;)

This is one reason why I wish the Nexus 7 had a rear-facing camera.

zalew 14y ago
it's wifi only, so it would be useless anyway in most travels.

mtgx 14y ago

Would it be possible to make this functionality available offline? I figure devices are powerful enough today to not experience too big of a delay when translating images, but I assume the engine would need quite a bit of storage? When you travel you need something like this offline, not online.

bigiain 14y ago
The alternative is to make it much easier to arrange a wireless data connection (at reasonable prices) went traveling. I hate trying to find my way around somewhere unfamiliar knowing I've got a smartphone in my pocket, but it hit a data connection to be able to use Googlemaps. That goes double for places where signs aren't even written in a script I can recognize (like Bangkok, for a recent example - Google goggles and gps mapping is _really_ helpful there.)
simcop2387 14y ago
Actually I'm not sure if devices are powerful enough to do this easily today. The image processing to do OCR and a number of other things they likely do to get it right (they likely have a different OCR engine for every language, so each image would be done a number of times to determine which language OCR'd the best). along with that The storage issue you mention and then also likely a ram issue are the biggest factors. I'm not sure that this can reasonably be done on a phone still. Now a modern laptop could likely handle all of this, though it still wouldn't be as useful as if your phone could do it on it's own.
georgemcbay 14y ago
I think the problem is more storage than power. I don't know exactly how Google Translate works but I've heard it uses human translated information as a corpus in an attempt to get natural-sounding translations (as opposed to the goofy old babelfish type translations). Eg. Someone is translating something from Russian to English. They'll look back into their history of web pages which have human-translated Russian and English versions to see if any phrases in Russian match what they are actively translating and if they do, they'll attempt to incorporate the human-created English translation of that into their translation. The data allowing for this must be absolutely huge. Having said that I'm sure they could do an offline version which didn't use the fancy human-translated corpus data and just gave you the crappy babelfish-style translation, which in a lot of real-world situations is good enough to get the gist.
scosman 14y ago
Bing launched this a while ago, with fully local translations. Each language pack is about 30MB. OCR and translation are local, and the translation is fairly good (not just a simple dictionary lookup). http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/2cb7cda1-17d8-df11-a844-00237de2db9e http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/2cb7cda1-17d8-df11-a8...

zhuzhuor 14y ago

Youdao dictionary Android app has the similar function to translate the word in live camera long time ago. You can check the last screenshot in the app page https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.youdao.dict&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.youdao.dic...

barista 14y ago

Wow. Didn't know Google translate didn't have this feature until now. That is something Bing on Windows phone could do for almost a year now... Nice feature. Useful if you travel a lot.

mtgx 14y ago
I think the functionality was available in Google Goggles before.

iag 14y ago

Google, p-p-please make it available for iOS. Come on, make love, not war.

zalew 14y ago
remember all those ios-first apps android users had to wait months for? karma is a bitch. :)
- pmelendez 14y ago
  Windows phone translator app from Microsoft does the same thing and works very good... Probably there is a third party app on iOS that does the same thing.
- shinratdr 14y ago
  To be fair this is exactly the same as it has always been. Google provides exclusive features for its services via private APIs that only Android can use. Everyone else has to use the public API, including Apple. As a result Google-developed applications for their services that can utilize those private APIs are better than the Apple-developed programs that hook into Google services. The good "iOS first" or "iOS exclusive" apps still are and still launch that way. Google services have always been different story. Just like Gmail before it and Maps before that, Google has no problem acting fair and while slowly and deliberately widening the gap between their private API and their public one. Recently it bit them in the ass and they lost iOS mapping which brings in plenty of real advertising revenue. I'm not sure doing it again with your core business, search, is such a great idea. It's worth keeping in mind who is really being hit by karma here. When Google shafts iOS like that, it cost them more money than anyone else. It really is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
  - yohui 14y ago
    I'm not sure I understand your response to zalew. You have an issue with how Google's private APIs are better than their public APIs, and argue that ultimately this hurts Google most, right? While that's a fine point, what does this have to do with how Google has released its own apps on iOS before Android in the past? EDIT: The iOS Maps controversy aside, I'm also not sure why Google Translate getting an update on Android would impact Google's "core business" of search.

Kartificial 14y ago

Have been playing around with this feature and notice that there is a clear boundary when it comes to performance. It comes down to the size of the letters. If you scan a lot of letters it does recognize the words, but the letter recognition turns out to be poor. As soon as you zoom in a bit the performance will improve drastically. All in all, neat feature :)

guelo 14y ago

World Lens is able to do this real-time on live video. But like many startups the big boy's "everything is free" philosophy is going to hurt their business model.

mootothemax 14y ago
World Lens is able to do this real-time on live video. Not for Polish, they're not. They also sadly don't support my beaten-up old ZTE Blade. Google translate has them beaten for both. Edit: regarding the "everything is free" philosophy, I would glady pay for Word Lens. If it ran on my phone. And supported Polish. Neither of which I see as being terribly likely in the future. goes on rant about how much I'd pay for a Polish lexicon in a format I can run some fun statistics against

mootothemax 14y ago

This is fantastic - I tried it just now for Polish => English, and the interface is very good, letting you highlight parts of the image that you want translated. Until now, when I've found a notice that makes no sense to me, I've resorted to taking a photo and then translating with a dead-tree dictionary once I got home. This app is going to make it a lot more difficult not to give in to temptation and cheat with Google. Whilst Google's Polish translations are pretty bad, they do the job for translating random verbs, which give you enough. Something about using sitting down with a paper dictionary helps the words stay in my head though.

peterwwillis 14y ago
With technology, nobody ever needs to retain information ever again. It's just a Google away.
- mootothemax 14y ago
  With technology, nobody ever needs to retain information ever again. It's just a Google away. That's a different - although interesting - discussion. You get so much more from learning a language than just retaining information. I'd liken it to learning the piano; whilst plenty of people are happy to press a button and hear sounds come out, sometimes it's really nice to sit down and play, you know? :)

mitjak 14y ago

I'd actually recommend the salmon just below the ham on the menu ;)