The above images were taken from a shop board in a Spanish neighborhood. As can be seen, Google Translate didn’t do much of a good job here but the context of what is meant is understood somewhat because a few words are converted from Spanish to English. Google’s Translate app is a major step towards breaking the lingual barrier between humans all over the world. In this text, I have touched upon some of the areas where I feel that the feature of photo translation or rather real-time translation can be effectively used. The possibility of encountering an alien language would increase when you visit a new country. Usually the first point of entry for many travelers is an airport or a sea port where they can encounter multiple sign boards in the local language or in English. But for people who neither understand the local language nor English, navigating this foreign land would be a task. In such a case, Google Translate can be of immense help. Let’s consider a tourist arriving from China at a German airport. He can see that all the sign boards are either in German or English but he understands none. The only language that he can read,write and speak in Mandarin. If he knows to use the photo translation feature, he can then easily point his smartphone camera towards the signages and the app would translate them to Mandarin for him. Continuing with the airport scenario, suppose an immigration officer comes across a passport which has something written on it in a language he doesn’t understand then he can use the app to translate that for him. In many countries, local restaurants usually have their menu cards printed in the local language. The diner can use the app to translate the items on the menu to order his favorite dish. Besides the above situations, an example that would distinguish the photo translate feature from any other regular textual translator would be in the case of translating recipes that are in a different language. Suppose you visit a local supermarket and pick up a canned product which has instructions in a language that you don’t understand. Now, it would be a lot of effort to type out these instructions using a keyboard of another language and then translate that typed text to a language of your understanding. In such cases, the photo translate would greatly reduce a user’s effort and would give the output in a matter of seconds. Here on, we imagine a future world where AR glasses/ contact lenses are a norm and they have the provision of automatically translating visual input of any language that the user doesn’t understand to a visual output in a language that the user can understand. Given below are the pros and cons of such a scenario. Pros: The ability to get an instant translation of something that’s written in another language, itself is the biggest advantage. Here the wearer doesn’t put in any effort to translate anything. He just needs to view in a direction and the wearable glasses do the work for him. This feature can be greatly useful in situations that require immediate translation as in medical emergencies. For example, imagine a situation wherein you need to cater to a patient who uses medicines with description in an unknown language. If you have such glasses you would easily be able to read what the medicine is for. Cons: The font style would not match the original text taking away the feel that’s associated with a font. The new text would look out of place as it’s superimposed on the original text. For example, some fonts styles give an old-school feel to the script. The purpose of visiting another country, at least for a tourist, is to experience its culture and language along with many other things. Using such glasses would defeat that purpose as you’re just seeing everything in your own language which takes away the novelty of being in another country. Such a technology could lead to eyestrain for the wearer as now his point of focus would be much closer to the eye than the original text. On the issue of the degree of control, the user should be able to choose whether or not he wants to translate text in real time. Or he could translate it only when he wants to, maybe by the click of a button. Google Translate does provide the setting of turning real time translation on or off on the device.
0 Comments
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |