Friday, December 17, 2010 3:26 pm, Posted by 2 | In The News

Incredible App Visually Translates Foreign Language Images Instantly

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Click icon to view app in app store

We are officially living in the world of tomorrow. As if taking a page out of Star Trek, the makers of ‘World Lens’ have built an incredible app that actually lets you translate any foreign language  into yours… instantly.

For example, if you hold up the phone to a sign or book that is written in Spanish, it simply shows you the sign as if it were written in English.

Created by QuestVisual, World Lens currently only translates English to Spanish (and vice versa) and is available from the iTunes for a modest $4.99.

The technology to create World Lens apparently took two and a half years to develop, which is no small undertaking, but probably explains why there are plans to include other languages soon.

Don’t believe it? Check the video below. I can also say that it works quite well after testing the app myself. Click here to download the app (iTunes link)

Do you think this could cause fewer people to learn a foreign language? It raises interesting questions about how much of our lives are controlled by smartphones. What do you think? Will you try the app out or have a use for it? While incredible tech, it may not be too useful for everyone.

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ludmila girvan

the app is a translating device so cannot demo perfectly written language. That's why u gets what u gets. Ludmila

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@JoannaOC

Too bad that in this commercial most of the signs that are being "tranlsated" are not written in real Spanish. For example, "lo traduce el texto" does not mean "it translates the text" but rather "the text translates it" and "lo va en el otro dirección" confirms that the person who wrote the copy for the ad speaks such poor Spanish that they made up a sentence that could never exist: "lo" is never a subject pronour, and "el otro dirección" is the wrong gender (something the app could not get wrong if it were translating from English to Spanish). Please note that it is not the app that is translating improperly, but rather that we are not seeing the app at work in this ad. Most of these "Spanish" sentences contain typical errors that a non-native speaker would make, familiar to any Spanish teacher. So, go ahead and pay your money, but be aware that this particular ad is the equivalent of linguistic photoshop. i

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ludmila girvan

the app is a translating device so cannot demo perfectly written language. That's why u gets what u gets. Ludmila

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@JoannaOC

Too bad that in this commercial most of the signs that are being "tranlsated" are not written in real Spanish. For example, "lo traduce el texto" does not mean "it translates the text" but rather "the text translates it" and "lo va en el otro dirección" confirms that the person who wrote the copy for the ad speaks such poor Spanish that they made up a sentence that could never exist: "lo" is never a subject pronour, and "el otro dirección" is the wrong gender (something the app could not get wrong if it were translating from English to Spanish). Please note that it is not the app that is translating improperly, but rather that we are not seeing the app at work in this ad. Most of these "Spanish" sentences contain typical errors that a non-native speaker would make, familiar to any Spanish teacher. So, go ahead and pay your money, but be aware that this particular ad is the equivalent of linguistic photoshop. i

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