Japan's NTT DoCoMo is set to launch the world's first Android-based commercial mobile service for conversation translation. Hanashite Hon'yaku provides automatic voice translations between Japanese and another of three languages, with results not only being displayed on-screen, but read out to each side of the conversation as by a voice synthesizer.
Quest Visual has ported its video-based translation app to Android. Word Lens ($5, Google Play) uses the handset's camera and displays the live feed on the screen with all visible words in a selected language translated into another instantly, as if they were quickly "Photoshopped" into the live video.
Quest Visual has brought its first application to the App Store, an instant video translation of printed material called Word Lens that does real-time visual translation by utilizing the video camera found in the two current iPhones and the fourth-generation iPod Touch. Users simply hold up the camera to any printed sign, menu or clearly-printed material and it is both translated and "photoshopped" back into the natural background instantly.
TranslateIt! for Mac, a tool that can translate and define text on-the-fly in all Cocoa-based Mac apps, has been reworked into a new version, called i3, that offers a new dictionary format, new text translation tool, adds a number of European localizations, improves the suggestions search engine, adds F-Script support and restores support for Thunderbird and Trust, among other improvements.
Recosoft has launched PDF2Office 5.1, updating it PDF translation software which focuses on Microsoft Office compatibility. PDF2Office recovers the data stored in PDF documents for use in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It recovers page breaks, graphics, annotations and formatting. PDF2Office Services also support Pages, Keynote and TextEdit.
RealSofts.com has updated TranslateIt! for Mac to v9.7, adding hover support, full text translation and new dictionaries. Hover support will allow users to translate a word by moving the pointer over an unfamiliar word (in any Cocoa application), with the translation in a pop-up window. Version 9.7 also adds morphology support, a multilingual user interface and custom dictionary building capabilities.
