Recently a new augmented reality app emerged which has the ability to read Spanish words on a poster and instantly overlay an English translation of those words in your iPhone’s screen. No doubt we can expect additional language versions of this app to become available before long.
If I were running a language school or translation service, I would seek to sponsor such versions – or develop the next one myself. This technology could represent the latest evolution in language learning, or at the very least enhance it. And it would certainly make for memorable advertising for my school.
For that matter, perhaps a more unexpected sponsor of such an app would be a restaurant. In Toronto’s Chinatown or Little Italy for example, many of the restaurants write their specials on the wall only in the native tongue of the cuisine’s origin. So there’s certainly a ready-made market for a translation app among the patrons. And now, a new way to attract such patrons.
