Text Translation at Mobile

Google will soon answer many travelers’ prayers who are literally lost in translation.

The search engine giant today reportedly offered a demonstration on new software it plans to introduce that translates text captured on a phone’s camera, according to industry sources. The demo was Google CEO Eric Schmidt's (News - Alert) keynote speech at Mobile World Congress, a cell phone trade show that is running through Feb. 18 in Barcelona.

During the demo, an engineer took a picture of a German dinner menu with a phone running Google (News - Alert) Inc.'s Android software. An application on the phone sent the shot to Google's servers, which sent a translation back to the phone. The translation: "Fruhlingssalat mit Wildkrautern" as "Spring salad with wild herbs."

While software that translates text from pictures currently exists for some phones, it handles the processing on the phone, the Associated Press (News - Alert) said. By sending the image to Google servers for processing, Google can offer more computing power for faster accurate results.

There was no word on when the software would be available.

Amy Tierney is a Web editor for TMCnet, covering business communications Her areas of focus include conferencing, SIP, Fax over IP, unified communications and telepresence. Amy also writes about education and healthcare technology, overseeing production of e-Newsletters on those topics as well as communications solutions and UC. To read more of Amy's articles, please visit her columnist page.