Last night, QuestVisual has released an eye-catching iOS app called Word Lens. Word Lens is an augmented reality app for the iPhone and iPod Touch (with video camera) which offers real time translation of text. You simply point your device's video camera at a sign and the program translates and superimposes the translated text onto the video in real time. The demo video shows it in action:
Word Lens is a free download to prove its real-time word detection algorithms. In the free version, users can reverse or blank-out text in real time. Meanwhile language packs for Spanish to English and English to Spanish are available for $4.99 each. More language packs are in the works. Translations are done on a word-by-word basis, so context is not taken into account. The translation is also done on-app, so no network connection is required.
Augmented Reality has been a much hyped possibility. Apple introduced the ability for developers to do this real-time video manipulation back in iOS 3.1.
Wednesday April 22, 2026 6:09 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Mike Rockwell, the Apple executive who led development of the Vision Pro and is now in charge of rebuilding Siri, has considered leaving the company or moving into an advisory role as soon as next year, according to a new Bloomberg report by Mark Gurman.
Rockwell is said to have reservations about reporting to his new boss, software chief Craig Federighi, and wants a bigger remit than the...
Apple today provided developers with the fourth betas of upcoming watchOS 26.5, tvOS 26.5, and visionOS 26.5 betas for testing purposes. The software comes a week after Apple released the third betas for each platform.
The software updates are available through the Settings app on each device, and because these are developer betas, a free developer account is required.
There's no word on ...
Tuesday April 28, 2026 7:51 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple's Vision Pro has hit another medical-use milestone, with a New York ophthalmologist becoming the first surgeon to perform cataract surgery using the spatial computing headset.
Dr. Eric Rosenberg of SightMD completed the initial procedure in October 2025 and has since performed hundreds of additional cases using ScopeXR, a surgical platform he co-developed for Apple's mixed reality...
