Global web translation provider TransPerfect is heading into the mobile world with the launch of a smartphone app which acts as a translator for 50 languages.

Officially launched for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad this week, TransImage allows the user to take a picture with their smartphone and the app quickly translates the text into any one of 49 other languages.

As well as pictures taken immediately from the handset, TransImage will also translate other pictures contain on the phone or its browser (helpful for the camera-less iPad presumably).

The launch by TransPerfect comes just four months after Google revealed an upgrade to its Google Goggles product to allow instant translation of text.

Other similar services rolled out this year include a system by Snap2Travel which takes pictures of travel-related products in printed publications and obtain prices from travel agents.

TransPerfect claims the app can translate any text from food menus or street signs, although for more complicated fonts and cultural references the user will have to pay a fee to connect to a “human translator”.

No word as yet on when an Android version of the app will be made available.