The prevalent tech giant Google is rolling out a significant update to the camera feature on its Translate app. The new version of the app adds support for 60 new languages.
It’s great news for regular users of Google Translate, where the camera feature is fantastically useful for translating things like menus and signs.
Key to the update is the integration of Google’s AI translation methods, known as neural machine translation (NMT). These models have been incorporated into Google Lens and the web version of Translate, but they are now supporting instant camera translation, too.
New languages supported in the update include: Afrikaans, Arabic, Bengali, Estonian, Greek, Hindi, Igbo, Javanese, Kurdish, Latin, Latvian, Malay, Mongolian, Nepali, Pashto, Persian, Samoan, Sesotho, Slovenian, Swahili, Thai, Vietnamese, Welsh, Xhosa, Yoruba, Urdu and Zulu.
The updated version of the google translate app will also automatically detect what language it’s looking at, which is handy if you’re traveling in a region where multiple languages are common.
Concerning this, language translation has become an important demonstration of the capabilities of some of the largest AI companies in the world, as part of language understanding operations that power things like AI assistants, local commerce, or social media interactions.
Keeping in line, the Google roll out its language feature and says the update will be available to 1 percent of users today, with a full roll out coming over the next few weeks.