Hasta La Gadget!

An analyst note released by research firm IDC yesterday points out that in the nearly two months since Windows Phone 7’s retail release, the Windows Marketplace has swelled to 4,000 applications — a number that the Android Market took five months to reach. That’s impressive, no doubt, and the analyst behind the numbers notes that he “would not be surprised if Microsoft had the third largest app portfolio in the industry by the middle of next year.” Now granted, hitting number three would take very little effort on Microsoft’s part — they’d just have to beat webOS, BlackBerry OS, and Symbian, none of which have sparked iOS- or Android-like levels of developer interest. So beyond that, what does the growth mean? Read on!

[Thanks, Stephen]

Continue reading Windows Phone 7’s Marketplace grows faster than Android did at launch, doesn’t mean much

Windows Phone 7’s Marketplace grows faster than Android did at launch, doesn’t mean much originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 22:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Word Lens, an app that translates English text to and from Spanish on the fly, is a reminder of just how powerful apps can be. But how’s it really work? It ain’t perfect, but it’s still pretty damn amazing. More »

Word Lens for the iPhone is one of the most amazing apps we have ever seen. Take a look at this, but put down any hot liquids first.

It’s an augmented-reality, OCR-capable translation app, but that’s a poor description. A better one would be “magic.” World Lens looks at any printed text through the iPhone’s camera, reads it, translates between Spanish and English. That’s pretty impressive already — it does it in real time — but it also matches the color, font and perspective of the text, and remaps it onto the image. It’s as if the world itself has been translated.

Impressed? You’re not the only one. John Gruber of Daring Fireball puts it best: “[It’s] as though near-future time travelers started sending us apps instead of Terminators.”

We’ve tested the app, and it works just as shown in the video. In demo mode, it can rearrange (or blank out) any text in the camera’s field of vision. You need to purchase translation packs to do the actual translation.

In our tests, it worked smoothly, although the words had a tendency to wiggle around a bit, switching between English and Spanish and flipping between alternate translations. You could get the gist of a sentence, but not read it clearly. Holding the camera very steady helped mitigate the “wiggling” effect.

Word Lens is a taste of science fiction, something like a visual version of the universal translator or the Babelfish. Only instead of being a convenient device to avoid movie subtitles, it’s a real, functioning tool.

Word Lens is free, and will do some fancy rearranging of words to show you how it works. The Spanish-English and English-Spanish dictionaries are in-app purchases, for $5 each, and the app runs offline — perfect for when you’re traveling. You can pick your coffee back up, now.

Word Lens download [iTunes]

Word Lens product page [Quest Visual]

See Also:

• Augmented Reality App Identifies Strangers With Camera
• How it Works: Augmented Reality
• Augmented Reality Hobo Signs? There's an App for That
• Yelp Sneaks Augmented Reality Into iPhone App
• Augmented Reality Ghost Hunting Creeps Into App Store
• Bionic Eye: Augmented iPhone Awesomeness in App Store
• Video: Nearest Subway App Overlays Virtual Maps on Real World …

Augmented reality and optical character recognition have just come into their own, beautifully intertwined into an instant translation app for the iPhone. Download Word Lens, pay $4.99 for a language pack, then point it at a sign and watch as it replaces every word with one in your native tongue. It’s a little bit like Pleco, but without the whole language learning stuff. We just gave it a spin, and while it’s not quite as accurate as this video claims, it’s still breathtaking to behold — especially as it doesn’t require an internet connection to do any lookup. Sadly, it only translates to and from English and Spanish for now. Still, Babelfish, eat your heart out.

Update: Looks like it only works on iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and the latest iPod touch for now.

Word Lens augmented reality app instantly translates whatever you point it at originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Dec 2010 00:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple will be kicking off the new year in style, with the launch of its much anticipated Mac App Store, a desktop-based counterpart to its ultra-successful iPhone and iPad stores. The new storefront will be available in 90 countries and will feature applications from a wide variety of categories, including Games, Productivity, Utilities, Education, Design, and Lifestyle.

Said CEO Steve Jobs in an announcement that went out this morning, “The App Store revolutionized mobile apps. We hope to do the same for PC apps with the Mac App Store by making finding and buying PC apps easy and fun. We can’t wait to get started on January 6.”

Note the use of the word “PC.” Aw, how the times have changed.

The Mac store will offer most of the familiar features, including download charts, ratings and reviews, and one-click purchasing. Once downloaded, apps can be run on multiple Macs when signed into your account. The store is available as a free update to Mac owners with Snow Leopard installed.

Apple is offering up 70 percent of download revenue to developers.