Google to release real-time translation app for Android

A month after Microsoft's Skype unveiling a program for real-time speech translation, Google was all set to release a version of its Google Translate app for Android, ANI reported.

The update would facilitate automatic recognition of speech in popular languages and would render the translation into text, according to The Verge.

The internet company had earlier said in July 2013 that the upcoming version of its translation app would be able to deliver delay-free, "near perfect" translations, something that few apps currently offered.

That, however, might not be all with Google also planning to come out with a service release allowing users to hold their phones up to a foreign street sign render the translation on the screen, the report said.

Its Word Lens app supports real-time word translations when users hold the camera on their smartphone up to any words in a foreign language and had it translated to their chosen language in real-time.

Google's Translate app could already recognise dozens of languages, which can be input by voice or by the smartphone's keyboard  and output it as text, but the latest update for Translate for Android, would allow users to automatically recognise the spoken language any manual selection on their part.

According to Macduff Huges, engineering director of Google Translate, the company had 500 million active users of Translate every month, across all its platforms. He added that translation was an important part of learning for most people as about 90 per cent of the web was in about 10 languages.

Google had not confirmed when the update would be rolled out but users could try the World Lens app from the Google Play Store.

Microsoft had recently unveiled an update for Skype that included real-time translation of human speech which worked by translating voice input from an English or Spanish speaker into text and translated audio.

For instance an English speaker would hear a translation from a Spanish speaker, and vice versa. The Preview currently worked on Windows 8.1 or preview copies of Windows 10 only.