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Summary: Have you ever been on a country where you can’t understand a thing about what they are saying? Of course this can sometimes be fixed with a traveler dictionary, or asking everything in English, because almost half of the people in the world speaks it, but, what if you’re alone in the road and you can’t just simply ask somebody where to go? And the signals don’t tell you a thing about what you should do next. Maybe this scenery is a little extreme, but it could happen, and that is the reason why
Have you ever been on a country where you can’t understand a thing about what they are saying? Of course this can sometimes be fixed with a traveler dictionary, or asking everything in English, because almost half of the people in the world speaks it, but, what if you’re alone in the road and you can’t just simply ask somebody where to go? And the signals don’t tell you a thing about what you should do next. Maybe this scenery is a little extreme, but it could happen, and that is the reason why apps just like Word Lens were created.
Word Lens is a revolutionary app that translates everything that’s written in another language using your phone camera. While travelling, understanding what’s written will not be a problem anymore, because it only takes some seconds translating in real time what’s written on anywhere. Sometimes, people is afraid of travelling because of the fact of being or not being able to understand the things around them, but now it won’t be an excuse anymore, because it is possible to know what’s written anywhere just tapping a button, without having to learn the basics of that foreign language.
Technology is certainly making the things easier for us and this is one of the things that prove that fact. Word lens works with any android cellphone and can be really useful thanks to its features. It only takes seconds to translate the messages, and works with many of the most common languages in the world. Quest Visual, the developing company of this app, was recently bought by Google, so now, as its most recent feature, it is completely free to download, so now, the languages are something accessible for everyone with a smartphone.
Of course, as every human invention, is not completely perfect
Word Lens has some big problems translating from handwritten text, because it can be a little difficult to detect and for the app, to understand what’s written, and it can get even worse if the handwriting is not completely legible or worse. Another bad thing is that you have to keep your camera completely static while using the app, because if you don’t, it may not capture the text written, or may make a wrong translation and cause some big troubles later.
Also, it works with an internet connection, so if you’re lost in the middle of the road and your phone has no signal or internet access, is not going to help you much. This can be a little problematic, because this kind of situations are the ones where you may need this technology the most, but for a casual travel to a populated city with internet access, it should be fine. Also, it translates in a very primitive way, without giving sense to the translations, because it translates each word individually and there can be conjugation mistakes or the text may have no sense, or may need an extended interpretation to know what is saying.
Of course, this app is not a bad thing, actually is awesome, and can work for many things if we learn how to use it.
