Word Lens is the app making jaws drop all over the internet this morning, thanks to this appropriately jaw-dropping demo video:
The video says it all, but you might be left wondering: is it a hoax? Can it really be as good as that?
The app itself is free, and has a built-in demo mode so that you can try it for yourself. The demo turns printed text backwards, with mixed results. You can see what it made of the text “PowerBook G4” in the photo above.
And here’s what it made of the front cover of my Pocket Oxford Dictionary:
It’s not faultless, and there are many bits of text it won’t work with at all. But it’s a very impressive demo, and a little hint of the kind of really clever augmented reality stuff we can be looking forward to in the years to come.
