Microsoft’s Phone Link app for Windows now allows users to copy text from images on their Android phones. After connecting the phone to the PC, users can access photos through the app, select an image with text, and use the new text recognition feature to copy the text to the clipboard. While the feature is promising, it may need improvements as it sometimes fails to detect text in images with busy backgrounds.
Windows Photos is receiving a feature update that includes content and text recognition, as well as support for motion photos taken on Google and Samsung devices. Users will be able to search for specific content in their photos backed up to OneDrive, such as searching for "beach" to find beach-related images. The Photos app will also support viewing the video portion of motion photos. Additionally, the Windows Snipping Tool will have text recognition capabilities and a privacy feature to redact sensitive information. These features are currently available to Windows Insiders.
Apple's Vision Pro headset's visionOS operating system includes a feature called "Visual Search" that allows users to identify items, interact with text in the real world, copy and paste printed text into apps, translate text between 17 different languages, and more. The headset can detect text and documents, and real-time text translation will be useful for traveling. The feature was discovered by Steve Moser in the latest Xcode beta.
