Apps that translate through iPhone camera?
 

Hey experts,

Are there any apps for the iphone that can use the camera to translate Japanese into English?

Thanks.

Would assume camera generated data without some form of OCR would be problematic. I always recommend finding the text in another format (signs, etc. are often available via Google searches, and then copy and past the text into the Google Translate App.

The key is the text in text data format. After that options abound with Google leading the pack for travelers IMHO.

Microsoft has an app that can do camera translations:

http://www.bing.com/translator/phone/

I've tried it out on my Windows Phone - it's pretty cool. Kinda Star Trek-y.

Unfortunately, the only Asian language it supports is Simplified Chinese. :(

I was hoping something like this existed for iPhone and for Japanese.

Japan Goggles might help. Never tried it but I read a few posts about varying success.

Odd that there aren't any apps for Japanese similar to Bing or these Chinese OCR apps: http://www.theworldofchinese.com/201...-read-chinese/

Kanji recognition should be similar and the kanas are even easier for an app to decipher. Am not a programmer, but definitely a market opportunity in the waiting @:-)

Agree that it looked promising, but was completely useless in the real world. Definitely a waste of money IMO.

Fair disclosure: I'm an Android user, and I'm not sure what Japan Goggles is.

But on my recent trip to Tokyo, I found the free (for Android) Google Goggles to be very useful in translating Japanese text. To be sure, it failed about as often as it succeeded, but even a 50% success rate is better than I could manage with my limited knowledge of Japanese, so I was quite happy.

If Google offers something similar for iPhone, I would expect that it would be just as effective and hopefully also free.

Does Google Translate for iOS have OCR? I just checked my phone and Google Translate on my Android phone has it built in (just had to download a Japanese pack). Maybe the OP can check?