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How to translate a website on most browsers
Want to read something that's in a different language? You can do it easily on your browser
Accessibility is one of the most important aspects of technology. Over the years, technology has become more accessible. A good example is the translation feature, which is available across all popular web browsers. So, when you want to read a website that's in a language unknown to you, your browser can translate it for you.
How to get Live Translate working on any Google Pixel phone
The feature was previously exclusive to the Pixel 6
During last month's Pixel 6 unveiling, one of the standout moments was the Live Translate demo, showing Marie Kondo utilizing the phone as a dedicated translator and interpreter, all without an active internet connection. Exclusive features like these are no stranger to Google's smartphone lineup, even as the company continues to rename its custom UI into something recognizable. As with Magic Eraser, it was only a matter of time before someone got Live Translate working on older devices — and that's exactly what's happened.
Google's Pixel 6 might play interpreter on your next vacation
Old and new features spotted together under a new Live Translation name
One of the rumored features the upcoming Pixel 6 and 6 Pro would have was improved translation performance. At the time, we didn't actually know it would be a heavily marketed feature; The Verge was merely shown a demo that showed a French to English translation via Live Captions. But according to the folks at XDA Developers, there's more to it than that, and we can anticipate a new branded Live Translate feature to debut with the phone, building on the existing translation systems and features in the Google Translate app, Lens, and Assistant, but with deeper integrations.
iOS gets the same system-wide translation powers as Android
iOS 15 adds some familiar tools with a great UI, but Apple's language selection is lacking
Google's long been the king of machine translation, but Apple appears to have designs upon its throne. The company revealed that its next release of iOS would feature "Live Text," a feature that's more or less a straight copy of the image processing Google has been doing in Lens for years. But as part of that, it's going to add rapid language translation pretty much everywhere in the operating system, including selectable text.
Now it's even easier to translate text on Android
A new Lens Translate button is showing up on the screenshot pop-up tool
Google Translate is a pretty slick tool, and the way that it's integrated with Google Lens for quickly applying it to text in photos is inspired. The latest tweak to the system on Android brings that functionality front and center. Users on Pixel phones are seeing an extra "Translate" action item in the pop-up screenshot menu, allowing them to get to Google Lens even faster.
Google Translate passes one billion installs on the Play Store
It does so when most people still can't travel
Google Translate is one of the oldest apps in its category but has been constantly improved over time with new features and a simplified interface. These investments have paid off, as the app just passed one billion downloads on the Play Store.
Google Lens translate feature spotted in Android 12 recents screen
We've been expecting this for what seems like forever
As far back as July 2019, we saw evidence that Google was preparing an easy-to-access translate feature in the recents/overview screen. This was finally announced by Google as part of December's Pixel Feature Drop, along with a similar feature for screenshots, but it's not appeared since. It now looks like it's finally showing up, although only in the latest Android 12 developer preview.
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After teasing it earlier this year, Google is now rolling out real-time translation transcriptions in the Google Translate app for Android. The feature will be delivered as part of an app update, which also brings a slight tweak to the app's interface and will be landing over the "next few days." It will work in any combination of eight currently supported languages: English, French, German, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Thai, and Spanish.
Google Translate is adding five new languages, including Uyghur and Turkmen
Google can now translate 108 languages across the web
Just a day after we noticed that Google Translate will soon be able to save translation history to Google accounts, the service is back in the news. This time, the Google Translate team has announced that five new languages — Kinyarwanda, Odia (Oriya), Tatar, Turkmen, and Uyghur — are coming to its growing library.
Google Translate history will soon be saved to your Google account
Now you can keep a record of all the languages you don't know
Whether you're traveling abroad, reading a menu at your favorite foreign restaurant, or trying to muddle your way through a foreign language class (guilty), Google Translate is a lifesaver when it comes to deciphering words and phrases outside of your native tongue. What it hasn't been able to do, however, is sync information between multiple devices, though that is about to change. With an upcoming service update, users will be able to save their translation history to their Google accounts.
While Google has been having issues with its multilingual speech-to-text algorithms, the company can generally be considered a cross-language processing pioneer thanks to its easy-to-use Translate app. The service is growing ever more powerful and has only recently seen improvements in offline accuracy and a better real-time camera-based translation. Behind the scenes, Google is already working on the next big thing for Translate and has demoed live transcriptions of translations, letting you listen to one language and read in another.
For those who frequently visit foreign countries, a reliable or affordable data connection can be hard to come by. Thankfully, Google's Translate app has a robust offline mode that should be getting even better soon. Today, Google announced improvements to offline performance that will increase the accuracy of translations and expand the availability of pronunciation data in a variety of languages.
Back in 2011, Google Translate made it easier to interpret live discussions thanks to Conversation mode. The app also got a fresh coat of paint more recently, making it easier to summon it. In parallel, Assistant-enabled speakers got the ability to translate live conversations in April, which essentially turned them into digital interpreters. Unfortunately, the functionality was exclusive to smart speakers and displays and wasn't available on phones until now. Google just released the feature on mobile devices as well, making it easier to have a conversation with someone who speaks a different language on the go.
Before Android Q Beta 5 launched, details from a leaked internal build were already doing the rounds on Reddit. This gave us a glance at some functionality that didn't make it into the publicly available beta build, like an option to change the back gesture's sensitivity. Another feature from the internal build has now surfaced that offers to translate the contents of an app preview in the Recents screen.
Interpreting and translating live speech is much trickier than simply processing written text. Indeed, unlike human brains, machines would typically need to go through three separate phases to convert oral communication from one language to another. Initially, speech would need to be interpreted by the machine and transcribed into text, which would then be translated into the target dialect, before being fed into a text-to-speech engine to be spoken out loud. Although this cascaded process is transparent for the user and relatively fast, Google is working on a more natural speech-to-speech method it called Translatotron, which doesn't need intermediate processing for translation.
In this crazy world we live in, it's comforting to know that some things will never change — the sky is blue, the sun rises in the east, and Google releases a new version of Chrome (roughly) every six weeks. Chrome v74 is now available on desktop and mobile platforms, and while it doesn't include a massive number of noticeable changes, there is still plenty to talk about.
During CES last month, Google announced its Home speakers and smart displays with Assistant would be capable of becoming virtual interpreters and translate live conversations between people speaking in different languages. The feature seems to be rolling out to the masses as an official support page has been set up, and several devices are now capable of translating discussions.
Every week, I examine somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred app updates while looking for changes. The most interesting things turn into APK Teardowns or Download posts. Many of the remaining updates are unremarkable, amounting to a few bug fixes, routine updates to libraries, or even just pixel-level adjustments to layouts and images. However, there are usually a few updates that land somewhere in between. I don't want to spam readers with dozens of short posts, but I hate to ignore things that people might want to know about, so I'm going to wrap up the leftovers for a little weekend reading and call it Update Notes.
Google Translate's camera mode, which allows you to highlight text from pictures to read them in your native language, is still one of the best real-world implementations of machine learning. Earlier this year, a handful of new Indian languages were added to the camera mode, and now 13 more are supported.