Google Lens Can Now Help Illiterate Users To Read Words

Anita - May 17, 2019

The Google Lens app could translate the words written in other languages and then read out loud them in Hindi.

Google introduced upgraded features to its Google Lens application which can help users, especially adults all over the world that face a lot of difficulties in reading daily things such as ATM instructions or street signs, read words in more than languages out loud during its I/O developer conference taking place on May 7. This feature was tested with several languages comprising of Hindi and one of the subjects for the test was Urmila, a woman coming from Uttar Pradesh.

According to a short video clip that the company played at this event, Urmila who is illiterate used Google Lens app on her handset to get it to read the words in Hindi out loud. The app could translate the words written in other languages and then read out loud them in Hindi.

According to Google Lens and AR’s Vice President, Aparna Chennapragada:

It is known that this feature is currently available on the Translate application, which allows users to capture photos containing text that need translating and read out loud the texts. But this back-end functionality occurs on the cloud or users need to download it on their devices to be able to use it offline. It will take up around 45MB storage for a file for Hindi translation.

As mentioned above, if users download Lens on the Google Go app, the file size will be only 100KB, which helps resolve the issue of low-speed connectivity. This portable version also helps the application to run on cheap Android mobile phones as well, which is what Google Go app was targeted at the beginning. With the size of only 5MB, the application focuses on users of cheap Android smartphones and supports searches on low-space smartphones and slow connections.

In the announced video clip, Urmila showcased the way the application reads out loud the instructions to help her book rail tickets online and use ATMs.

But as per Chennapragada, it is impossible to use Lens on Google Go in India.

She wrote in her blog post that there are over 800 mil adults across the world facing difficulties in reading daily things such as bank forms or bus schedules. She noted: