Google recently acquired Quest Visual for an undisclosed amount; this translates into a wonderful benefit for the further development of the Quest Visual app Word Lens. Word Lens translates text from a given language into English and vice versa, by simply taking a picture of the words in question via your Google Glass, Android or iOS device and the app then translates them.

The app works without any kind of network signal, which is a boon for those travelling according to the article in PCMag. It also works with Google Glass, for those of you who have become recent explorers for the $1,500 device.

Quest Visual was founded in 2009, and the four-person team currently operates out of San Francisco. They've previously worked closely with Google around Word Lens, as the latter was one of the five featured Glassware apps Google showed off as part of a November 2013 hackathon for Google Glass.

Word Lens had this to say about the acquisition: It's safe to say that Glass and Word Lens are ideally matched, so it'll be curious to see just how Word Lens bolsters Google's other translation-themed apps and services going forward.

With Word Lens, we've seen the beginnings of what's possible when we harness the power of mobile devices to "see the world in your language."

By joining Google, we can incorporate Quest Visual's technology into Google Translate's broad language coverage and translation capabilities in the future.

As a thank you to everybody who supported us on our journey, we've made both the app and the language packs free to download for a limited time while we transition to Google.

Neither Google, nor Quest Visual have commented further on the acquisition to date.