Ccaps Blog

Hello all! Remember when a while back I wrote about fun new cell phone translation technology in the post Cool! Where Can I Get One? Well folks, now we can all have our own translation technology literally at our fingertips.

Fotozio launched the first free iPhone photo translator application, PicTranslator, which turns the iPhone camera into a point-and-shoot translator. Foreign road signs, menus, maps, etc. can be translated with the push of a button – no phrasebook lookups or typing of foreign text required to understand and read printed text.

Screenshot of application on iPhone

Presently, the iPhone app only translates into English; however, it does translate from Czech, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish. It also provides pronunciation of the original text for French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish languages.

Fotozio admits that the technology is not perfect. For example, poor handwriting or low lighting may inhibit translation, but it hopes to overcome these setbacks with future technology. They also plan to deploy user input to make constant improvements to the application.

The PicTranslator video shows the application in action. PicTranslator is available through the iTunes App Store.

Posted in 01/20/2010 at 12.50 am.
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