Word Lens App – Now a Property of Google

Google is taking its translation abilities to a new level with the acquisition of the developer firm Quest Visual, which owns the Word Lens mobile translation app.

In an attempt to bolster its translating services, Google has acquired developer firm Quest Visual and its Word Lens mobile translation app. Quest Visual announced the development last week and stated how the firm looked to do a lot more things by joining hands with Google.

Word Lens App

The Word Lens app by the firm was a show stealer with its ability to decipher information written on physical papers through the device’s camera and then translate the words to another language. So, if you found something written in Latin, you can just use your phone’s camera to take a picture of the text and you can read it translated in English.

The best part is that you do not even need to have a working internet connection for the translation. Google is sure to integrate the technology with its Google Translation service increasing the translation capabilities significantly. Google Translate, as one knows, helps people translate words, phrases and sentences from one language to another. It is an amazingly useful multilingual statistical service helping people understand new words.

So, what will Google do with the technology? Here are some assumptions from our side.

  • Google can make an app of its own that will help people take photos of texts and then directly send it to Google translate which will translate the text.
  • Include newer capabilities in Google’s Android OS making use of the technology to let’s say, have a better camera interface and one that knows automatically that when it needs to translate text?

Unusually, Quest Visual stated that they will still continue to work as a team while at Google, and so it seems that this buyout is more of Google’s intent to let the Quest Visual team to work on certain projects for Google’s benefits.

You can therefore expect Google Translate to become a lot more useful and cooler in the future. Meanwhile, while Quest Visual transitions over to Google, the developer firm has made both the Word Lens app and the language packs free to download for a limited time. Quest Visual specified that it will continue work while at Google, so this buyout appears to also be an acqui-hire of sorts.

Right now, you can download the Word lens app on the iOS store as well as the Android Google Play Store. Languages supported right now include English, Russian, Portuguese, German, Italian, French, and Spanish.

App entrepreneurs would surely be following this development thoroughly as the future of camera apps seems to be a lot different. Are you thinking to make one such app that Google would be envious of? Let us know your thoughts.

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