Google makes phones translate captured texts

Google is currently working out the new software that translates foreign text captured by a phone camera.

The new Google’s Android software was demonstrated today at Mobile World Congress, a cell phone trade show in Barcelona. After an engineer shot a picture of a German dinner menu with a phone running software, a phone app sent the shot to Google's servers, which sent a translation back to the phone.

Thus, an application translated "Fruhlingssalat mit Wildkrautern" as "Spring salad with wild herbs."

New Google’s software translating text from pictures is already available for some phones, but generally does the processing on the phone. Sending the image to Google’s servers for processing requires more computing power, for faster, more accurate results.