It can be difficult to visit a foreign land if you don't speak the language. Not only can you not talk to the locals to ask for directions, but you can’t read the street signs to figure out where you are and find where you are going. Google has updated the Translate app for Android users with a new feature called Word Lens.
Word Lens will allow users to use the smartphone camera to highlight any text and get a translation on the fly. When used to read a street sign, the text is overlaid right over the sign in translated from. This makes it easy to see what the sign means in any of the supported languages. Street signs aren’t all the app can translate though.
One of the good things about Word Lens is that you also don’t need to have a data connection for the feature to work. Word Lens instant translation works from English to and from French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
The update also makes it easier to have a conversation with a person who doesn't speak your language. You can type the mic to start speaking in a selected language and then tap the mic again to recognize what languages the two people are speaking. That means you don’t even need to know what language the other person is speaking is called to have a conversation.
SOURCE: Insidesearch