Saturday, May 17, 2014

Google acquires Word Lens app recently featured in Apple’s iPhone ad “Powerful”







Google just bought the company behind a smartphone app called Word Lens that visually translates text in real life scenarios right on your device using the camera and some behind-the-scenes intelligence.

With Word Lens, we’ve seen the beginnings of what’s possible when we harness the power of mobile devices to “see the world in your language.”

By joining Google, we can incorporate Quest Visual’s technology into Google Translate’s broad language coverage and translation capabilities in the future.

As a thank you to everybody who supported us on our journey, we’ve made both the app and the language packs free to download for a limited time while we transition to Google.

We’re looking forward to continuing our work at Google – stay tuned!

The kicker? Word Lens was recently featured rather prominently in Apple’s latest iPhone ad “Powerful” and even listed on Apple’s microsite promoting the film as an app to explore.

Google, of course, offers a lot of apps on the iOS platform (36 alone if you just look at iPhone) so there’s no reason to suspect Google will remove the app from the App Store as Apple would likely do if it were to purchase the software (based on previous buys like Siri).
And it’s really a good fit for Google’s portfolio as far as acquisitions go. Word Lens even boasts support for Google Glass for translating words on the fly using visuals and its feature set somewhat resembles that of Google’s own Google Goggles app which can translate text by snapping a photo. As per their own announcement, Quest Visual, the company behind Word Lens, will work as a part of the Google Translate team.



As for acquisition details, no price has been disclosed for the purchase but Word Lens appears to reside on the more casual side of recent mergers and acquisitions unlike Google’s $3.2 billion deal for Nest (which is still being sold by Apple). Google has confirmed the acquisition to multiple outlets.



Word Lens first debuted in 2010 and is available on the App Store as a free download with packs to unlock for additional translations. Previously, these packs were sold as in-app purchases.



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Thursday, January 2, 2014

LG's webOS TV Revealed Ahead of CES In Leaked Image




LG's webOS TV has been rumored for some time now, and was expected to be revealed at CES next week. However, evleaks has posted an image of what they claim to be the LG webOS TV.

The image shows the webOS Cards interface, featuring thumbnail of any apps and content running on the TV. Apps such as YouTube, Facebook, Skype and Twitter are all listed in the photo as well as a web browser.

Rumors point to the television set being powered by a 2.2GHz dual-core processor as well as 1.5gb of ram. LG has also said that it plans to support Enyo, the Javascript framework that apps are built on for webOS. As for pricing and availability, we'll have to wait until CES to find out.


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Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Sony to Launch Vaio Branded Windows Phone in 2014?




Sony is reportedly considering the launch of a Windows Phone in 2014, according to The Information.

Sony, whose mobile unit has exclusively made smartphones powered by Google’s Android software for nearly four years, has considered launching a Windows phone as soon as mid-2014, according to a person who was involved in the talks and a person briefed about the device.

The two companies have reportedly held numerous discussions with Sony even drawing up designs for a prototype device. If released the phone is said to be branded under Sony's Vaio line.

Talks over the device have continued despite Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's devices; however, nothing has been finalized yet. The deal could fall through if the two disagree over licensing fees, preloaded software, and other topics.

Microsoft's Windows Phone platform is finally starting to get see some growth; however, getting other manufacturers on board is important. Apparently, Microsoft has also had discussions with ZTE to produce low-end Windows Phone devices in the U.S., China, and Europe.



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- Posted using my iPhone 5s