Google has taken a giant step forward in its quest to bring translation into the real world, following its acquisition of Quest Visual, makers of the ‘Word Lens’ app, for an undisclosed sum. Word Lens is a smartphone app that’s designed to help travellers read menus and signs in foreign languages. Simply snap a photo and it will translate the printed words into your language, without needing any Internet connection.

Here’s a statement from the WordLens.com website:

“With Word Lens, we’ve seen the beginnings of what’s possible when we harness the power of mobile devices to “see the world in your language.”

“By joining Google, we can incorporate Quest Visual’s technology into Google Translate’s broad language coverage and translation capabilities in the future. As a thank you to everybody who supported us on our journey, we’ve made both the app and the language packs free to download for a limited time while we transition to Google.”

“We’re looking forward to continuing our work at Google – stay tuned!”

In other words, we can expect to see the formidable translation power of Google Translate combined with Word Lens’ unique technology to create what would be the most flexible and reliable translation tool around.

Word Lens is now available to download for free while it transitions to Google, but afterwards we can expect to see a new and improved Google Translate app. Word Lens uses your smartphone’s camera to read text on menus and signs, and is available for Android, iOS and even Google Glass.

No doubt, Google is betting that Word Lens’ features will be popular with users of Google Glass. Having the ability to translate every word that you see would be enormously convenient after all, and give people yet another reason to want to try Google’s wearable offering. It’s clear that Google is determined to make a success of Glass no matter what. It recently made an ‘Open-Beta’ version of device available to the public for $1,500, and there’s good reason to think this is a prelude to a general release when we’ll finally see Glass arrive on the store shelves.

Google’s acquisition of Quest Visual is the continuation of an aggressive expansion into software makers, having acquired Bitspin, maker of the gorgeous Timely alarm clock app for Android, last January. Timely is still available to download on Google Play and its not clear what Google intends to do with this technology just yet – an indication perhaps, that it may be some time before a revamped Google Translate lands in the store.

Image via Google Play