Users also have the option of immediately translating all images on a webpage via the Yandex translator menu found in the browser’s address bar. Yandex’s new feature lets users double-click an image, and the browser uses computer vision to identify written content, translate it, and superimpose it back on the original image.

There are browser extensions, which need to be downloaded, and some require users to copy and paste the text into an editable format prior to translating. In-browser text translators have been around for years, but they only identify words and can’t translate text embedded in images. It can translate foreign language image content such as newspaper or magazine scans, comics/anime, or the ingredients list off of a packaging scan for a K-beauty product. The new function is powered by computer vision technology as well as the company’s own in-house translation software, Yandex Translate. Russian tech giant Yandex has solved this with the first ever desktop browser with built-in image translation. Have you ever translated a foreign article, only to realise you still can’t read the text in the images on the page? Or lost the manual for a cool piece of tech you can’t get to work, only to find a PDF version with the text in Japanese?

Yandex translate image