Following up on their announcement from Google for India 2019 where the company said that more native languages will be added to Google Lens to extend its translation capabilities in India, Google Lens feature has been rolled out to Assistant on Jio Phones, which run KaiOS.
Now Jio Phone users can access Lens by clicking on the camera icon in the Assistant app. They can point their camera at a text on a street sign, product label, or document, to have the app read it back to them, define the text or translate it in their preferred language.
Lens feature on Google Assistant for KaiOS currently supports Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi and Tamil, with Kannada and Gujarati to follow soon.
Google Assistant can be accessed on Jio Phone by long-pressing the button on the centre of the keypad when on the home screen. To access Gooogle Lens feature in Assistant to translate, define or read the text, tap on the right soft key once the Assistant is open.
“This is another step in our commitment to make the language more accessible to everyone, and we hope this will enable millions of KaiOS users across the country to have a more seamless language experience,” Google announced.
The update comes days after Google announced a massive $4.5 billion in investment in Jio for 7.73% stake, as a part of their $10 billion investment plans announced at Google for India 2020.
The two companies will be collaborating to develop an entry-level smartphone that runs an optimised Android OS and Play Store — something the company already offers via its Android Go line of smartphones.
It’s funny how Google used up almost half of that projected investment fund for the next five to seven years within the first week on a single investment, in a company that happens to be owned by the richest person in the country.
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