Back in May, Google acquired Quest Visual, which is the maker of the WordLens app that is able to translate words and signs written in one language into another through simply pointing at the words using the user's smartphone camera.
Similar to the upgrades that Google rolled out for Google Maps when it acquired Waze, the functionality could soon be an added feature to Google Translate.
Android Police acquired an unreleased version of Google Translate, taking screenshots that show the new feature at work. In the screenshots, the trademark ability of WordLens can be seen working for Google Translate, as a menu written entirely in English is translated live into Spanish without requiring any recording and without any form of delay.
Users that are interested in trying out the feature can access it through the original WordLens, as the app has been made free to download after Google acquired Quest Visual.
The initial release for the Live Translate feature in Google Translate will include support for translating English, French, Italian, German, Russian, Portuguese and Spanish. However, in the version of the app that Android Police saw, the translation was only able to occur from and to English. The functionality of translating between the rest of the languages, from Italian to French, for example, is not yet supported.
Google Translate, however, will also be launching a future update for its conversation mode. Currently, users that travel or talk with people using another language can use the conversation mode of Google Translate to understand the words being said by people through translating them in real time. However, the current version requires users to manually change the language for each sequence. This means that the people talking will have to first change the language of Google Translate before speaking so that the translator can pick up the language being used.
The future update for Google Translate's conversation mode will allow users to select a pair of languages that the app will listen to. Google Translate will then be able to translate each word being spoken into the other language. This eliminates the artificial feeling of previous versions of conversation mode, allowing users to carry multi-lingual conversations in a smoother and less bulky fashion.
Android Police stated that they have no information on when Google will be rolling out these new features for Google Translate. The website, however, notes that the implementation looks like it is already complete, so the features may likely be already included for the next major update of the app.
