Tencent’s OCR App Gets a Fresh Pair of Eyes, Now More Like Google Goggles

Last September I reviewed a new translation app from China’s Tencent (HKG:0700) that uses OCR technology to read words, via the phone’s camera, and automagically translate them. Now the app, Soso Huiyan, has been updated to version 2.0 on the iPhone [1] and has evolved to become more like Google Goggles, able to recognise logos, book covers, movie posters (and lots more) and give you search results from that image.

The refreshed app makes some use of Tencent’s own Soso.com search engine, which is a minor player in the China market with an approximate 5 percent market share. Though the updated Soso Huiyan app is clearly following the lead set by Google with its Goggles app, it sets Soso apart from the nations’s top search engine, Baidu, among smartphone-toting Chinese web users. The app could be especially useful for shoppers, as it not only scans and recognises logos and stuff, but can also process barcodes and QR codes to give you more detailed product information.

The app can now scan logo and products and give detailed descriptions from search results.

The free app is still geared towards Chinese users, not global ones – it works best, in terms of its language abilities, when translating English to Chinese text – but could be useful for overseas travelers to China who might find themselves wanting to scan a logo (if Google Goggles fails you). But the app does at least have an English localization. Version 2.0 also bundled in a business card scanner, but I’ve yet to test out how good that is.

For Chinese users, the Soso Huiyan app isn’t limited to Soso’s search facility, but uses a variety of familiar names to get information, such as the product search engine eTao, Amazon China, and the books- and music-oriented social network Douban.

Download Soso Huiyan from the iTunes App Store.