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In my recent time I spent with the Android OS, I had theopportunity to test out the very nifty Google Goggles. When it was announcedway back when, I admit I had a pang of jealousy for all the lucky people onAndroid who could try this before me. When I actually first downloaded it, Iwas rather underwhelmed but what was essentially a glorified OCR reader andbarcode scanner. I struggled to find a use for the app in my everyday life andit was henceforth relegated to the deepest darkest recesses of my apps list.

Enter Google Goggles 1.1. The recent upgrade has includedsupport for translation of English, French, Italian, German and Spanish text.The way it works is it integrates Googles’ existing translate app to the OCRtechnology of Google Goggles. Now, you can select a boundary of text in yourimage and you get the option to translate to or from any of the above-mentionedlanguages! I see great potential to holiday makers who find it takes too longto look up foreign phrases from signs and menus in their Lonely Planetphrasebook, although, data roaming charges is quite another problem.

While the technology for enabling and helping computers anddevices to “see” is still in relative infancy, Google is hard at work improvingit as they go along. I won’t be surprised if Google Goggles 1.2 adds more usefulfunctionality and integration. Facial recognition cross-reference with Facebookanyone?