Augmented Reality: Google Goggles App Gives the Globe Universal Translation

Google has been very active of late. They have acquired companies at an ever increasing rate but the bigger stories are about the companies they have acquired already; Bump Top, which gives them a seriously cool 3D user interface. They are apparently moving along smartly into the 21st century with everything from interactive television to virtual books. Lately, though, with the mobile wars and the push into the smartphone market things have seemed to heat up. Well, they have just released "Google Goggles," another App for Android.

Google Strikes Again

What makes this a significant move is with the subject of Augmented Reality just coming onto the world's stage, they managed to release the people's version of the Universal Translator from Star Trek. Of course it is free. Google is the first company in the world to figure out how to make a profit on free stuff. This is just too cool. The App requires an Android 1.6 or higher smartphone with a camera equipped with auto focus and a QVGA screen. Once you install it you will begin to understand the implications of this simple App.

Amongst other things (yes there are other things...), you point your smartphone's camera at a piece of text, such as a street sign or menu item and the Google Goggles app translates it and shows you the translation on the screen in place of the original words. Google apparently denies rumors they are developing a transporter, but what ARE they doing with all that electricity then... I wonder.

The Google Globe

As mentioned above, translation isn't the only trick Google Goggles has in store for you. Along with that little trick, you can also point your smartphone camera at a landmark and "snap!" Google Goggles will search and find the name of the landmark and other relevant information for you. This makes the App an instant multi-lingual tour guide.

It does the same for restaurants, just point and, other language or not, you will know the name and have a menu to peruse if one is available. It will even snap a photo of a business card and scan the contact information into your Google address book. Most of the rest of the tricks involve Image Recognition so when you take a photo of something, Google is searching for what the photo is.

"Forever Beta" and the Future
There are a few limitations to the translation application. It will currently only recognize 5 Latin-based languages, although it will translate them into many more than that. The Goggles App has been around for some time but the translation feature is new. Most "Googlites" know that Google is big into translation and language and this is a surprising, but expected development.

Google already implemented auto-captioning for all YouTube videos recorded in English earlier this month. Previously this was only available for select partners. Additionally, there is an effort to bring live, automated language translation to mobile phones. Yes, that's right, you call someone in Spain and speak in English and they hear Spanish. Seriously, could this be the "globalization" or the New World Order we have all been told to fear? Again, I wonder...

References & Resources:

Google Labs: Google Goggles
ReadWriteWeb: Google Rebuilds the Tower of Babel With Real-Time Language Translation