Word Lens

Original author(s)	Otavio Good
Developer(s)	Otavio Good, John DeWeese, Maia Good, Bryan Lin, Eric Park
Initial release	December 16, 2010 (2010-12-16)
Stable release	2.0.1 / February 27, 2013; 2 months ago (2013-02-27)
Written in	C++, Objective-C, C#, ARM Assembly, Java
Operating system	Apple iOS 4.3+, Android 2.3.3+
Platform	iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod Touch 4, iPod Touch 5, iPad 2 Wi-Fi, iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G, iPad 3 Wi-Fi, iPad 3 Wi-Fi + 4G, iPad 4 Wi-Fi, iPad 4 Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad Mini Wi-Fi, iPad Mini Wi-Fi + Cellular, Android phones
Size	31.4 MB
Available in	English <-> Spanish, English <-> French, English <-> Italian, English <-> German
Type	Translation software
License	Proprietary
Website	http://questvisual.com

Word Lens is an augmented reality translation application from Quest Visual.^[1] Word Lens uses the built-in camera to identify text, such as a sign or a menu, in one language and have the words shown translated into another language. The words are displayed in the original context on the original background, and the translation is performed in real-time without connection to the internet. Word Lens is available for the Apple's iPhone, iPod, and iPad,^[2] as well as for a selection of Android smartphones.^[3] The application is free on Apple's iTunes, but an in-app purchase in necessary to enable translation capabilities.^[2] On Google Play, there are both the free demo and the full translation-enabled versions of the application.^[3] Word Lens 1.0 was released on December 16, 2010,^[4] and received significant amount of attention soon after,^{[5][6][7][8][9][10][11]} including Wired,^[12] The Economist,^[13] CNN,^[14][15] The New York Times,^[16][17] Forbes,^[18] The Wall Street Journal,^[19] MIT Technology Review,^[20] and ~2.5 million views on YouTube in the first 6 days.^[18] Since the application held a No. 1 position on the lists of Top Free Apps and Top Grossing Apps on iTunes for the few days following its release, it is currently described as Top In App Purchases.^[2] This application is currently available as Word Lens 2.0.1.^[2][3]

Application [edit]

Screenshot from the official Word Lens demo by Quest Visual, Inc.

Word Lens is an augmented reality application that recognizes printed words using its optical character recognition capabilities and instantly translates these words into the desired language.^[2][3] This application does not require connection to the internet. In its default mode, Word Lens performs real-time translation, but can be paused to display a single frame or to look up alternative translations of each specific word in that frame. It is also possible to use the built-in dictionary to manually type in words that need to be translated. Word Lens requires iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod Touch with a video camera, iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad 4, or iPad Mini .^[10][2] In 2012, Word Lens was also released for a selection of Android smartphones.^[3]

At the release on December 16, 2010, only English-to-Spanish and Spanish-to-Englinsh were supported, but other language dictionaries were planned,^[15] with European languages expected first.^[7] English-to-French and French-to-English were released on December 14, 2011.^[21][22]

A free version is available, but it only contains the 2 demo modes: erasing words and reversing words. Each language pack (e.g. English <-> Italian) must be purchased separately to enable translation capabilities.^[5][16]

Even though Word Lens was initially released for iPhone only, Quest Visual planned to expand to Android, Windows Phone 7, Palm, and BlackBerry,^[7][9] with Android likely to be targeted first.^[18]

According to its description, Word Lens is best used on clearly printed text and was not designed to translate handwritten or stylized fonts. This application was created to help tourists understand signs and menus, and it is not 100% accurate. The developer Otavio Good commented: "I will be the first to say that it’s not perfect, but perfect was not the goal". However, testers who took the app to other countries said it had been useful.^[18] Further, even though the application was not designed to read books, the Wall Street Journal journalist Ben Rooney managed to understand a page from Harry Potter y el Prisionero de Azkaban.^[19]

Developers [edit]

Example of a French-to-English translation by Word Lens

Word Lens has been developed by Otavio Good, a former video game developer and the founder of Quest Visual;^{[1][4][15][18]} John DeWeese, who previously worked on the Electronic Arts game Spore,^[4][15][18] and programmers Maia Good,^[18], Bryan Lin, and Eric Park.

Competition [edit]

"Google Goggles application for Android and iPhone has the capability to translate text or identify objects in an image, but it requires users to take a picture with their phones, and an active internet connection. Word Lens does it on the fly, meaning it's interpreting frames in video, almost in real time. A similar app called LookTel, designed to help blind people, scans print on objects such as packages of food and reads them aloud."^[15]

Reviews [edit]

Articles in the Wall Street Journal and Tom's Guide cited Clarke's Law describing Word Lens: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".^[8][19]

The New York Times journalist David Pogue included Word Lens in his list of "the best tech ideas of the year" 2010 (10 ideas total).^[17] See 2010 Pogie Awards video.

In the Wall Street Journal article by Ben Rooney, Word Lens received a rating of 4/5 and was described as "a sort of magic".^[19]

Word Lens was chosen as a finalist for the 2010 Crunchies Best Technology Achievement award.

Ellen of The Ellen DeGeneres Show demo'ed Word Lens and referred to it as 'amazing' in her segment Ellen Found the Best Apps!

Otavio Good won the 2011 World Technology Award in the category IT-Software (Individual) presented at the United Nations headquarters^[23][24] and the 2012 NetExplo award in the category Innovation & Technology presented at the UNESCO headquarters for the creation of Word Lens.^[25]

The New York Times App Smart columnist Kit Eaton included Word Lens into his list of favorite apps.^[26]

History of updates [edit]

Table updated on March 10, 2013 based on refs.^[2][3]

See also [edit]

• Augmented reality
• Optical character recognition

References [edit]

External links [edit]

• Word Lens on iTunes
• Word Lens on Google Play
• Quest Visual homepage
• Original video demonstration of Word Lens
• Otavio Good explains Word Lens 1.0
• Otavio Good explains Word Lens 1.0.1 (interview with Reuters)
• Independent demo of Word Lens
• Building 43 journalist Robert Scoble interviews Otavio Good about Word Lens