If you've ever been frustrated with things like trying to read food product labels in Thai supermarkets, or in general reading text in a foreign language of anything in an image, consider using the Google Translate app. 

 

It has a special "camera" feature that allows you to point your smartphone at the text and it then automatically translate the text to your native language...pretty cool ????

 

It can be downloaded for free from Google Store or Apple's App Store. 

 

Now that new but worth pointing out.

I am using it frequently and am surprised about the progress they made in OCR (optical character recognition).

 

One could add that the Camera feature also has an "Import" function which basically means that you can feed pictures from your phone memory.

That can be screenshots of website pictures as an example.

For the import function you need internet connection.

(don't know whether other functions work offline?)

Google Lens is the actual image recognition application. It has been incorporated into Google Photos and an increasing number of other apps. And yes, the AI behind it is incredible.

20 minutes ago, ChristianBlessing said:

Google Lens is the actual image recognition application. It has been incorporated into Google Photos and an increasing number of other apps. And yes, the AI behind it is incredible.

Indeed I find that Google Lens (Translate) does a better job than Google Translate (camera) as it seems to do a better job of character recognition.  Google Translate (camera) seems to have trouble getting to a stable character recognition sometimes.  Google Lens seems to do that better even if the underlying technology is similar or the same.  I prefer the Google Lens app.

8 hours ago, ChristianBlessing said:

Google Lens is the actual image recognition application. It has been incorporated into Google Photos and an increasing number of other apps. And yes, the AI behind it is incredible.

Wow!  You guys are right.  I had no idea that Google Photo had this feature...and it works much better than Google Translate.  Even though you have to take a snapshot first, and then translate instead of Google Translate's point and translate, the translation is SIGNIFICANTLY better in Lens, and actually much quicker on the whole.  Thanks for the heads-up ????

 

Just imported a picture to Google Lens and selected Translate and then Google Translate app opens?

Yes the identification of the text (mark/select) seems more straightforward with Lens.

But in my example exact same result.

?

Quote

#Good all over good to dtac new wave

1 hour ago, KhunBENQ said:

Just imported a picture to Google Lens and selected Translate and then Google Translate app opens?

Yes the identification of the text (mark/select) seems more straightforward with Lens.

But in my example exact same result.

?

It's just that Google Translate can be very quirky, and it's difficult to hold the camera still enough for it it translate the complete view; almost impossible actually unless the camera is on a tripod.

 

Reading off of a snapshot, Lens is much more accurate, especially for complex texts like full paragraphs..

Sorry to deviate a little from the OP's original title but I'm getting frustrated with Facebook translate (they use Google Translate?). They have removed the automatic translate button (and thence 'translate all messages' button' on THAI language messages.

This is only for Thai. It is still there for other languages.

Many people have mentioned this and I complain daily, but of course no response from Facebook.

Sorry, just a rant -- back to your original subject now.

Used it for a while....little bit fiddly...little bit hit and miss......but you can usually read between the lines (see what I did there) and work out what something is saying.

23 minutes ago, Promsak said:

Sorry to deviate a little from the OP's original title but I'm getting frustrated with Facebook translate (they use Google Translate?). They have removed the automatic translate button (and thence 'translate all messages' button' on THAI language messages.

This is only for Thai. It is still there for other languages.

Many people have mentioned this and I complain daily, but of course no response from Facebook.

Sorry, just a rant -- back to your original subject now.

Facebook does not use Google Translate, they have their own machine translation.

[Actually the background is very interesting, but as that's not what you asked about I'll just post a link:  https://www.vengaglobal.com/blog/google-vs-facebook-nmt-difference/ ]

If you would like to use Google Translate, because facebook translation is not working for instance, then open facebook in the Google Chrome Browser which has automatic translation that can be turned on for Thai language.  On a facebook screen with Thai just right click on the text and select Translate to English. If that does not work and google thinks the language is unknown, click on the vertical ellipsis in the box and select "Page is not in unknown" and pick Thai.  Of course, this is not as convenient as when facebook is working but when it's not it's a good workaround.

1 hour ago, Promsak said:

Sorry to deviate a little from the OP's original title but I'm getting frustrated with Facebook translate (they use Google Translate?). They have removed the automatic translate button (and thence 'translate all messages' button' on THAI language messages.

This is only for Thai. It is still there for other languages.

Many people have mentioned this and I complain daily, but of course no response from Facebook.

Sorry, just a rant -- back to your original subject now.

Yes, Facebook did remove Thai as one of the languages they automatically machine translate.  This was due to a most unfortunate translation referring to queen.  It was almost certainly unintended (it's machine translation) but it was quite offensive to Thais.  Facebook, took down Thai machine translation until this could be fixed.  It should be back by now.  If not, I suggested in my other comment to use Chrome to view facebook and use the automatic Google Translate in that browser.

10 hours ago, skatewash said:

Yes, Facebook did remove Thai as one of the languages they automatically machine translate.  This was due to a most unfortunate translation referring to queen.  It was almost certainly unintended (it's machine translation) but it was quite offensive to Thais.  Facebook, took down Thai machine translation until this could be fixed.  It should be back by now.  If not, I suggested in my other comment to use Chrome to view facebook and use the automatic Google Translate in that browser.

You may recall that the same thing happened about this time last year. Facebook remarked that the removal was in response to complaints regarding the poor translation from Thai to English regarding the birthday of HM the King.

On 6/13/2021 at 11:29 AM, WaveHunter said:

Lens is much more accurate, especially for complex texts like full paragraphs..

 I haven't used it for a while, but you can also copy the OCR translated text from phone camera to clipboard, and if signed into same account on a PC its carried over to PC clipboard at same time.