Does everyone know about this but me? You can place your smartphone camera over any foreign language sentence (book, sign, movie marquee) and you can get an automatic translation. All you need to do is download the Word Lens app.

If you knew about this, why didn’t you tell me? I found out about it from my cousin Hanna. I simply asked her to tell me about a few of her favorite apps. When she mentioned Word Lens, I didn’t believe her. Then she demonstrated and left Eliot and me speechless.

We travel a lot and this app can come in very handy. We can’t wait to try it on every foreign sentence we can’t decipher. You have to watch the video above to see a quick demo. Don’t miss it. You’ll want to translate everything.

When I Googled Word Lens, I was surprised to learn the app has been around for years. Google now owns it. The actual explanation is that it uses the built-in cameras on smartphones and similar devices to quickly scan and identify foreign text. It then translates and display the words in another language on the device’s display. 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.”

This is so awesome. I never have to worry about trying to translate a menu or foreign language document again.

Woohoo!
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That’s Hanna