Amazing Instant Translation App Looks Great in Video

The World Lens iPhone app just went live tonight and this tool for instant OCR-driven language translation through your phone’s camera looks great in the demo video. After buying it and testing it, though, I can tell you that at least in my limited experience it is more likely to result in motion sickness and chuckles than helpful navigation.

The video (above) looks great, but I tested it on some Spanish text on both my computer screen and printed out on paper with little satisfaction. The translations fly in and out, change constantly, don’t make a lot of sense and are very hard to read. A write-up on TechCrunch says that the creators worked on this for more than two years. Perhaps their results have proven better than mine. Perhaps mine would be better in the field. But for now, it’s not so good. I’ve posted a screen capture below and lucky for you, it’s not moving all around like the app did.

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Below, thanks to Google Translate (sorry, Spanish instructors!) I have tried this app on the following sentences: What kind of food do you serve here? The ticket for the bus is $1 and is to be paid in cash. Please do not feed the animals.

If it worked better, this would be awesome and well worth $5. Remember kids, when traveling the world, do not oxidant or cough the animals.