
Introducing Word Lens, for Android - jf
http://blog.questvisual.com/post/26612327582/quest-visual-is-pleased-to-make-several
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saddino
Conversation here on whether this would be a good acquisition for Google just
got me thinking about Google's motivation behind Glass (a bit off-topic):

1) Google can (easily) make the argument that it needs to sample the image
stream from every headset along with GPS/gyro to recognize "what you are
looking at." These samples would be stored (of course).

2) Each sample can be OCR'd to recognize signage and contextual strings for
searching that particular frame (e.g. thinking of every frame as a "web
page").

3) Google can then "index the real world" with the image and contextual data.

Forget sending cars around taking photos. With enough users wearing headsets,
Gooogle can build a searchable, virtual representation of the physical world.

And to get back on-topic: I'm surprised that the Word Lens guys didn't think
of this (not the image mapping, but the signage/contextual mapping). Or maybe
they have...

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Ineffable
I have no doubt that at some point Google will start building some sort of
integration between Glass and Street View. They're already starting to do what
you're talking about with street view data - they're using ReCAPTCHA to OCR
street signs and house numbers to try to get more accurate address information
for maps.

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jack-r-abbit
WHOA! How freakin' cool would this be on Google Glasses when traveling abroad!
Everywhere you look... the text is just translated for you.

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aclimatt
Indeed, and it already seemed like this was definitely on their to-do list
from the Glass keynote. I don't know how you could build a product like Glass
and /not/ do that (other than it perhaps being an extremely difficult problem
;P).

More than that, microphone + reasonable speech recognition = everybody you
talk to is instantly subtitled. Also an extremely difficult problem, but one
I'll bet will be commonplace in 15 years.

~~~
tomjen3
I take it that you are not familiar with the way the German language order
words?

Because there is no way you could accurately subtitle German in English, other
than knowing what he is going to say before he say it.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
> _there is no way you could accurately subtitle German in English_

At one time I am sure there were people that said, "Mr. Wright, there is no
way you can get that thing to fly."

~~~
tomjen3
A piece of unsolicited advice:

Learn the difference between what cannot be done and what is impossible.

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s_henry_paulson
As someone who travels a lot, I've been hoping to get more out of this app,
but it's been almost 2 years now, and I can only choose Spanish or French.
(according to this page Italian is also available, but I don't have that
option on my phone yet)

Since they're only translating each individual word (and not phrases or
sentences), I wonder why it takes them so long to put out new languages.

~~~
jeztek
Hi s_henry_paulson, check the app store for an update, we released 1.2 last
night, which should include Italian.

We've been short-staffed until very recently, stay tuned for more languages!

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moe
Does this work right for anyone?

For me the words don't stay put. It flickers constantly, making it near
impossible to read.

~~~
frankdenbow
Does the same for me, but you can press the pause button to get a snapshot.

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jbellis
Hasn't google goggles been doing this for a couple years now?
[http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2010/05/translate-real-
worl...](http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2010/05/translate-real-world-with-
google.html)

~~~
forgotusername
This isn't quite as slick as how word lens does it. Google's translation is
likely better, but Word Lens superimposes the translated text back into place
on the original image.

Anyone tried to install it on a stock 2.3.3 Nexus One and been told it's
incompatible?

~~~
jeztek
Yep, we were sad about that one. The hardware is up to spec but there's
something about the GPU driver that's causing the N1 to perform poorly.

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mootothemax
I think there's definitely a gap in the market for something a bit simpler:
there have been a good number of times when I've been stumped by a word or two
in a sentence (in Polish) written on something in the street, and have
resorted to taking a cameraphone photo and translating later when at home.

Sadly, as I'd love to have a play, the app store says that it's incompatible
with my cheapo ZTE blade.

~~~
bullfroge
It isn't compatible with my Droid X either, which surprised me. Play doesn't
tell me why, which is inconvenient.

~~~
jeztek
We haven't blacklisted the Droid X. Can you let us know what kind of problems
you're seeing?

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51Cards
Have been waiting for this to come to Android for awhile now but sadly it
doesn't seem to want to install on my Nexus One. Says it only requires Android
2.3.3+ and I have 2.3.6. Oh well, add another reason on the pile to replace
this phone despite still loving it over the new Nexus models.

~~~
jeztek
Yeah, we wanted to support the Nexus One, and the hardware meets the minimum
requirements but we encountered weird performance issues likely related to the
graphics driver.

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reustle
I don't understand how this isn't compatible with my device (google play won't
even let me install). I have an HTC EVO. It can't be a hardware power thing,
if the iTouch runs it fine.

~~~
jeztek
Sometimes the hardware meets the minimum specs but other issues like buggy
drivers lead us to have to blacklist a device.

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jamengual
I like the idea but the translations to Spanish are terrible.

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covercash
Any chance of getting a version that recognizes a url, email, twitter handle,
etc. and makes them clickable? Goodbye QR codes!

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zaptheimpaler
Word Lens + Auto Captions = Instant Subtitles in EVERY language. OMGBBQ.

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moe
Unrelated rant: Dear Google, can you please add QR-Codes to the web play-
store.

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drivebyacct2
Why? You can just press "Install" and it instantly starts downloading on your
phone?

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moe
Only if I login and thereby allow google to connect my mobile profile with my
browsing profile. Which I decidedly don't want.

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drivebyacct2
... what?

You're already logged into a Google account on your phone. Or do you really
have different account for your phone, thereby foregoing the biggest advantage
of having an Android phone (sync with all of the Google services)?

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moe
I don't use any Google services other than Search. I have no interest in
giving them more information than absolutely needed.

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J3L2404
Two years is an awful long time to go from iOS to Android.

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bdcravens
Why did it take so long? Small team, SDK limitations, funding? I can't imagine
that porting an Obj-C code base to Java would take as long as it did. (Doesn't
matter how long original code base took; that was development, whereas porting
code is more "manufacturing") Not trolling, just curious.

~~~
newhouseb
I'm sure what took so long is a combination of a) ridiculously
poor/inconsistent camera API's b) less than satisfactory SIMD support. When I
ported some camera stuff from IOS to Android it took me 3X as long due to the
need to work around bugs in the SDK. I'm sure they had to do all sorts of
nasty things with the JNI to get it performant as well, and I'm not even sure
the JNI supports things like the C++ STL yet.

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mondras
nice!

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wesus
sweet!

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FelixP
This is incredible. We're living in the future!

