Word Lens is one of the those “wow the face off your tech-illiterate friends” apps that allows you to use your smartphone’s camera to translate real-world text into the language of your choosing in real-time. Needless to say, it was real awesome when it launched for Android back in July of 2012 and we were hyped to see the app recently make the transition onto Google Glass only a few weeks back.
We’re not sure what took so long, but it Google’s attempt to scoop up every interesting technology in the world, Word Lens announced on their site that they’ve officially been acquired by Google. Developer Quest Visual says they’ll soon be incorporating their tech into Google Translate, hinting at a future update that will effectively level-up Google’s own service.
As a going away present, Quest Visual is offering up Word Lens for free on Google Play (and the Apple App Store) along with all their language packs. You can watch Word Lens’ debut trailer — uploaded to YouTube nearly 3 years ago — down below. We wont even lie, we thought it was a hoax the first time we saw it in action. How time flies.
Download on Google Play: Word Lens