What you are looking at is possibly the coolest thing you can purchase for $4.99: the Word Lens iPhone App translates images from English to Spanish and back using your video camera, all in real time. It's the future!
While this probably has a multitude of practical purposes, what we're interested in is its application to menu reading and travel. They only have English and Spanish available now, but we don't see why it wouldn't eventually have a multitude of languages. Can you imagine being able to go to any restaurant, whether in a Chinatown in the states or halfway around the world, and order knowledgeably off the menu? Here's video of it in action:
Video: Introducing Word Lens
· Word Lens [iTunes via TechCrunch]
· Introducing Word Lens [YouTube]
· All iPhone Apps Coverage on Eater [-E-]