This is probably my most amazing find for today, and it really seems like a great idea, if it is viable. So here’s a scenario, your in Japan, you don’t speak the language, your starving, and you don’t want to take the chance of eating badly prepared Fugu fish. Maybe you need your own personal translator, but lugging a whole person around could be tiresome. What if you could take a photo of text in any language, send it away, and receive it translated, back. Well Nokia may have that in your future.

So with the cornucopia of devices, software and applications recently ousted at the CTIA conference it’s not strange that some things almost get overlooked!

April 7, 2008 Nokia unveiled a plethora of mobile phone functionality concepts last October at The Way We Live Next briefing in Finland and tucked away behind the high profile apps was a simple shoot-to-translate function. Inveterate traveler Dave Weinstein dropped in at CTIA last week and reports that he focused straight away on the cameraphone translator that can supposedly translate Chinese to English from a photo taken on the phone. “You can imagine how useful it would be for me, but it was just a technology demo. They wouldn’t let me load the app on my phone or tell me any real info about it”, says Dave, who spends most of his time in Beijing these days.

I found this interesting and novel, but what a great idea, never look like a plebe at a french restaurant again. There’s not a lot to go on, but a fantastic innovation if it becomes reality!

Via Gizmag

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