Search Speak for Automaton

Alternate titles for this blog could be “Doodle Transition for Machina” perhaps! For at least a decade I have thought about just such an application and today I have Google Translate for Android. Load, aim, and it will process the text and translate on screen for you. Given the state of technology you would think it would be amazing by now, and it sometimes is.

The success largely depends on the language and that can also be seen in using translate.google.com, where some languages will translate fairly cleanly and others are very rough. One language I have to translate frequently is Chinese (simplified) and it is problematic for many things including company names and technical terms. With that in mind, I would expect it to translate with the same issues via the Google Translate app, and more specifically, do so consistently.

Since I am writing this, you know what’s coming…

This is the result of holding the phone up to a mail label from Japan. That’s all! Just moving the phone ever so slightly by tilting it or moving it half an inch closer / farther will make it change the translation. I think it finally got it a bit correct on that last one since the envelope didn’t contain anything living.

Hopefully the translation technology from Google will advance more quickly on Asian languages. Until then, I am just glad I didn’t get any “Sunrise Holy Poop” in that envelope.