Google on Wednesday unveiled several updates to its Translate App in an effort to bring down language barriers. It said users in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati and Marathi can experience offline translations and instant visual translation in their preferred language.
“The biggest application is that we are breaking language barriers,” said Barak Turovsky, Head of Product and Design, Google Translate and Machine Intelligence, Google, during a webcast with reporters. Google Translate has also added support for conversation mode in regional languages including Tamil and Bengali. This feature lets users have a bilingual conversation with someone, simply by talking to the Google Translate app.
India is among the top four countries globally using Google Translate which translates over 140 billion words every day. “India is one of the most interesting and unique places,” said Mr.Turovsky. He said that more than 400 million people in India used the Internet. But the vast majority of India’s online content is in English, which only 20% of the country’s population speaks. “Even the local content is in English,” said Mr. Turovsky. He was of the view that most Indians found it difficult to find services and content in their language.
Word Lens
The Translate app already lets the user use camera mode to snap a photo of English text and get a translation for it in these languages. Now, with Word Lens feature, Google has taken it to the next level, letting users instantly translate text using their camera. The company said now it was way easier for speakers of local Indian languages to understand English street signs in the city or decide what to order from a restaurant menu. Word Lens is powered by machine learning, using computer vision to distinguish between letters on an image. The company said with Google Translate, users can easily turn their phone into a powerful translation tool, whether for studies, business, travel or work. Offline support enables Indian language users to translate a word or sentence even when they are not connected to the Internet.
