If you’ve used Google Lens, you know that it’s capable of solving lots of different tasks. And now, it has a superpower that only pharmacists have had so far – it can decode doctors’ handwriting. At its annual conference in India last week, Google announced that it’s working to bring you a “doctors’ handwriting translator” in the app. And of course, it’s working closely with pharmacists to develop the tool.
The feature is still not officially a part of Google Lens, but the tech giant plans to add it as soon as it’s perfected. Like other app features, this one will also allow you to either take a photo of your prescription or upload one from the library. From there on, the app will “translate” what the prescription says, in case you forgot what the doctor told you and you can’t read their handwriting.
Google Lens is already capable of reading your handwriting, copying it, and pasting it into a search bar. Other than real-time translation, this is one of my favorite features of the app, and I’ve played with it a lot since it was first announced. You can observe the new “doctors’ handwriting” feature as a mere extension of this Google Lens’ capability. I must say that I find it pretty amusing since I’ve seen tons of memes about doctors’ handwriting and pharmacists being the only ones able to read it. But all jokes and memes aside, I also find it useful in more than one way. I’m someone who always forgets what the doctor said, so it will come in handy to have a “translator” to remind me which meds to buy. Although, I can just ask the pharmacist when I go to buy my medications and show them the prescription. However, it’s not only doctors that can have illegible handwriting – trust me, I used to be a teacher! :) So, perhaps this new tool will help all the teachers out there as well. It could make homework grading far less frustrating! Update 20 December 2022: The title has been modified to reflect that the feature is still in the works. “The handwriting recognition technology previewed at Google for India is a research prototype of a machine learning model,” Google spokesperson told DIYP. “As we made clear during the presentation, we’re excited about the promise of this technology, but it’s not ready for the public yet, nor have we committed to bringing it to a specific product. We’ll share updates on any broader rollout as they become available.” [via TechCrunch]
