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Nokia Shoot-to-Translate Camera
Nokia has just showcased a nifty mobile translator cameraphone application called Shoot-to-Translate. The intent is to ease the lives of busy travelers trying to read signs and news in foreign lands. You see a sign or other text in Chinese, take a clear picture, and (Bob's your uncle) you've got the English version.
(From )
The text released with the prototype demonstration unit for the Shoot-to-Translate cellphone is as follows:
“Shoot to Translate: a demonstration using software that translates written characters into another language; the original text is captured with the camera on the Nokia multimedia computer and translation happens in real time.”
At present, the Nokia Shoot-to-Translate feature only translates Chinese to English.
I believe that there is a close analog to this device provided as an assistive device to people who are visually impaired. The K-NFB device developed by Ray Kurzweil would allow the user to take a picture of some text in English, do character recognition, and then read the resulting text aloud. See K-NFB Portable Text To Speech for more details.
Take a look at these other efforts in real-time translation:
- LingoPhone Provides Mobile Translation
Go back and forth between most permutations of English, French, Italian, Spanish, German and Portuguese. - Automatic License Plate Recognition Goes Mobile
This system can capture and translate the text and numbers of up to 3,000 license plates per hour.
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