Word Lens
Original author	Otavio Good
Developers	Otavio Good, John DeWeese, Maia Good, Bryan Lin, Eric Park
Initial release	December 16, 2010 (2010-12-16)
Final release	2.2.3 / April 18, 2014; 11 years ago (2014-04-18)
Written in	C++,Objective-C,C#,ARMAssembly,Java
Operating system	Apple iOS 6.1+,Android 2.3.3+
Platform	iPhone 3GS+,iPod Touch 4+,iPad 2+,Android phones,Google Glass
Size	43.3MB
Available in	English ↔ Spanish, English ↔ French, English ↔ Italian, English ↔ German, English ↔ Portuguese, English ↔ Russian
Type	Translation software
License	Proprietary
Website	http://questvisual.com

Word Lens was anaugmented reality translation application fromQuest Visual.^[1] Word Lens used the built-in cameras on smartphones and similar devices to quickly scan and identify foreign text (such as that found in a sign or a menu), and then translated and displayed the words in another language on the device's display. The words were displayed in the original context on the original background, and the translation was performed in real-time without a connection to the internet. For example, using the viewfinder of a camera to show a shop sign on a smartphone's display would result in a real-time image of the shop sign being displayed, but the words shown on the sign would be the translated words instead of the original foreign words.

Until early 2015, the application was available for theApple'siPhone,iPod, andiPad,^[2] as well as for a selection ofAndroid smartphones.^[3] The application was free on Apple'siTunes, but an in-app purchase was necessary to enable translation capabilities.^[2] OnGoogle Play, there were both the free demo and the full translation-enabled versions of the application.^[3] AtGoogle's unveiling of its Glass Development Kit in November 2013, translation capabilities of Word Lens were also demonstrated onGoogle Glass.^[4][5][6][7] According to the January 2014New York Times article, Word Lens was free for Google Glass.^[8]

Google acquired Quest Visual on May 16, 2014 in order to incorporate Word Lens into itsGoogle Translate service.^[9][10][11] As a result, all Word Lens language packs were available free of charge until January 2015.^{[10][11][12][13][14]} The details of the acquisition have not been released.^{[9][10][11][12]} Word Lens feature was incorporated into theGoogle Translate app and released on January 14, 2015.^{[15][16][17][18]}

Word Lens is anaugmented reality application that recognizes printed words using itsoptical character recognition capabilities and instantly translates these words into the desired language.^[2][3] This application does not require connection to the internet. In its default mode, Word Lens performs real-time translation, but can be paused to display a single frame or to look up alternative translations of each specific word in that frame. It is also possible to use the built-in dictionary to manually type in words that need to be translated.

Word Lens 1.0 was released on December 16, 2010,^[19] and received significant amount of attention soon after,^{[20][21][22][23][24][25][26]} includingWired,^[27]The Economist,^[28]CNN,^[29][30]the New York Times,^[31][32]Forbes,^[33]the Wall Street Journal,^[34]MITTechnology Review,^[35] and ~2.5 million views onYouTube in the first 6 days.^[33] Since the application held a No. 1 position on the lists ofTop Free Apps andTop Grossing Apps oniTunes for the few days following its release, it is currently described asTop In App Purchases.^[2] In 2014, Word Lens was featured in theApple ad foriPhone 5SPowerful.^[10][11] This application is currently available asWord Lens 2.2.3.^[2][3]

Word Lens requiresiPhone 3GS+,iPod Touch with a video camera,iPad 2+, or anyiPad Mini .^[2][25] In 2012, Word Lens was released for a selection ofAndroid smartphones.^[3] In 2013, Word Lens became available forGoogle Glass,^[5][7] even though Google Glass itself is not yet freely available.^[8]

At the release, only English-to-Spanish and Spanish-to-English were supported, but other language dictionaries were planned,^[30] with European languages expected first.^[22] English-to-French and French-to-English were released on December 14, 2011.^[36][37] In 2012, English-to-Italian and Italian-to-English were added, followed by English-to-German / German-to-English and English-to-Portuguese / Portuguese-to-English in 2013, and English-to-Russian / Russian-to-English in 2014.

Since the acquisition by Google in May 2014, all previously released language packs can be downloaded for free.^{[9][10][11][12][13]} It was also speculated that through incorporation intoGoogle Translate, Word Lens would be extended to "broad language coverage and translation capabilities in the future".^[38]

According to its description, Word Lens is best used on clearly printed text and was not designed to translate handwritten or stylized fonts. This application was created to help tourists understand signs and menus, and it is not 100% accurate. The developer Otavio Good commented: "I will be the first to say that it’s not perfect, but perfect was not the goal". However, testers who took the app to other countries said it had been useful.^[33] Further, even though the application was not designed to read books, theWall Street Journal journalist Ben Rooney managed to understand a page fromHarry Potter y el Prisionero de Azkaban.^[34]

Word Lens was developed byOtavio Good, a former video game developer and the founder ofQuest Visual,^{[1][19][30][33]} John DeWeese, who previously worked on theElectronic Arts gameSpore,^[19][30][33] and programmers Maia Good,^[33] Bryan Lin and Eric Park. A U.S. patent application on the technology was filed by the company in 2010 (based on a year-earlier provisional patent application), naming Good as inventor, but went abandoned for failure to respond to a Patent Office action. The application was published asUS20110090253.

Articles in theWall Street Journal andTom's Guide citedClarke's third law describing Word Lens: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".^[23][34]

The New York Times journalistDavid Pogue included Word Lens in his list of "the best tech ideas of the year" 2010 (10 ideas total).^[32]

In theWall Street Journal article by Ben Rooney, Word Lens received a rating of 4/5 and was described as "a sort of magic".^[34]

Word Lens was chosen as a finalist for the 2010CrunchiesBest Technology Achievement awardArchived January 8, 2011, at theWayback Machine.

Ellen ofThe Ellen DeGeneres Show demoed Word Lens and referred to it as "amazing" in her segmentEllen Found the Best Apps!

Otavio Good won the2012Archived April 27, 2012, at theWayback MachineNetexplo award in the categoryInnovation & Technology presented at theUNESCO headquarters for the creation of Word Lens.^[39]

The New York Times App Smart columnist Kit Eaton included Word Lens into his list of favorite apps.^[40]

Table updated on April 23, 2014 based on refs.^[2][3][4]

• Augmented reality
• Optical character recognition
• Google Translate

• Quest Visual homepage
• Original video demonstration of Word Lens
• Otavio Goodexplains Word Lens 1.0
• Otavio Goodexplains Word Lens 1.0.1 (interview withReuters)
• Independent demo of Word Lens
• Apple adPowerful featuring Word Lens foriPhone 5S

• Discontinued iOS software
• Photo software
• Android (operating system) software
• Translation software
• Augmented reality applications

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from February 2014
• Webarchive template wayback links