Galaxy S26 series quietly introduces a clever new camera feature nobody is talking about

Samsung has quietly given the Galaxy S26 series a clever new functionality that no earlier Galaxy cellphone has had or will get. The corporate has launched Actual-time translation contained in the Galaxy S26’s camera app. Whereas Samsung has been rolling out its Overlay Translation system to older Galaxy units, the S26 is the primary lineup able to Actual-time translations utilizing the tech, immediately within the viewfinder.

So now, as a substitute of displaying translated textual content in floating packing containers, the Galaxy S26 series replaces foreign-language textual content in actual time, protecting it anchored to its authentic place as you progress the camera. Avenue indicators, menus, labels, and directions seem rewritten in your chosen language, and so they transfer naturally with the scene in entrance of you.

The way it works

The actual-time feature builds on Samsung’s Overlay Translation system, which is additionally supported on older Galaxy telephones, together with the S22 series, for nonetheless photographs and net content material.

Overlay Translation doesn’t simply translate the textual content, it reconstructs the picture itself. The cellphone detects textual content utilizing OCR, interprets it with Samsung’s neural machine translation engine, removes the unique textual content, restores the background of the picture utilizing “AI in-painting,” after which locations the translated textual content again into the picture in a matching fashion and site.

On older Galaxy units, this course of works within the Gallery app and Samsung Web, the place the cellphone has sufficient time to completely rebuild the picture. The Galaxy S26 takes this a step additional by making use of the identical core concept in actual time via the camera.

That mentioned, real-time camera translation on the Galaxy S26 comes with some efficiency limits. Superior in-painting, the step that completely reconstructs backgrounds, is at present too heavy to run reside within the camera viewfinder and is restricted to nonetheless picture translations within the Gallery app or the browser.

On the Galaxy S26 series, Samsung focuses on quick textual content recognition and translation, then overlays the translated textual content dynamically because the camera strikes. To make use of Actual-time translation on the Galaxy S26 series, customers must comply with these steps:

• Level the camera on the textual content or picture that must be translated
• Faucet the “T” button > Actual-time translation
• After a whereas, the translated textual content strikes with the camera view

The translated textual content stays locked to the scene, creating the impression that what you’re seeing is already in your language.

Samsung says this functionality is unique to the Galaxy S26 series for now, with plans to convey it to future fashions as processing energy improves.