HP have figured out a way for a PDA equipped with a digital camera to translate signs and text in foreign languages into English:
Armed with an HP iPaq and digital camera add-on, HP researchers snapped an image of a sign in German, waited while the software identified and highlighted the text, then translated it by connecting wirelessly to a server with built-in optical-character recognition (OCR) software from ScanSoft. Currently, the software, which requires between 100 Kbytes and 200 Kbytes of storage space in an unoptimized form, can process six languages, including English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian. The technology does have some limitations; a user has to tell the software what language the text is in, for example. In addition, HP is bound by the capabilities of the OCR software. The OCR software also can’t compensate for a picture taken in low light, with motion blur, or under other imperfect conditions.
Read [Via PocketPCThoughts]
