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Google buys company behind Word Lens photo translation app

Quest Visual, the company behind the Word Lens photo translation app for iOS and Android, has announced they have been acquired by Google. Specific financial details were not announced.

Google just keeps on buying up companies for various purposes. After acquiring the solar drone company Titan Aerospace in April, the folks in Mountain View, California have bought themselves another developer in Quest Visual, the makers of the Word Lens app.

The Word Lens app itself, which launched a few years ago, allows iOS and Android users to take pictures of objects that have some kind of text. The app can then translate the text in that image in a variety of languages.

The acquisition announcement was made on Friday on the Quest Visual website. It stated:

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.

Specific financial details on this new deal were not disclosed. The Word Lens clients for iOS and Android, which were paid apps before Friday's acquisition, are still available to download "for a limited time", according to the site. Quest Visual has also made both the apps and their language pack add-on files free to download until their move to Google is completed

Source: Quest Visual | Image via Quest Visual

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