The new application software for Android and iPhone, Word Lens, can act as an instant interpreter, translating words with the help of a camera lens.
The app can use the mobile phone's inbuilt camera to recognize any text that is viewed through the lens, and then translate it into English.
Word Lens can so far work out French, Spanish and Italian words and phrases. It then translates them using automatic translation software and pastes them over the original location.
“It tries to find out what the letters are and then looks in the dictionary. Then it draws the words back on the screen in translation,” Word Lens developer Otavio Good told TechCrunch.
The translated phrases are not grammatically correct, but the speed and accuracy of the app is good enough to make sense of simple texts.
Good said that more languages were going to be introduced, and that he was considering a reader for the blind to read out loud the words the app sees.