Anyone who has traveled abroad to a country where they don’t speak the language is probably already familiar with the Google Translate app. If you’ve ever tried to use the automatic translation feature in the camera, you’re probably also aware it could do with some improvements. Good news, then – Google’s improving it.
In a blog post today, Google outlined a few improvements specifically to the camera features in the app. First of all, Google has increased the supported languages for camera translation from 28 to 88 (full list here), and it will now support automatic detection of the source language – a feature than can really help in areas with distinct dialects.
Of course this wouldn’t be a Google announcement without a little Machine Learning in there, and Google is claiming a reduction in errors between 55-85% along with a faster translation time thanks to their new Neural Machine Translation (NMT) technology built into the app.
Finally, Google has improved the UI to not only reduce the image flicker you often get when using Instant Translate.
Instant Translate modes have been promoted to the app’s main interface, so on launch you can now easily select between Instant, Scan or Import.
The update is rolling out now. Grab the app below if you don’t have it installed.
If you’ve got a trip planed and you’ve never used Google Translate, we highly recommend installing it and downloading the local languages of where your visiting – it might help in a pinch.
