Google Can Now Read Doctors’ Bad Handwriting

A large number of doctors write medicine prescriptions in haste, making it nearly impossible for their patients to understand what they scribbled. This problem has been around for decades and many tech firms have attempted to solve it with little to no success. Now Google is having a go at translating those unfathomable texts.

The search giant announced at its annual conference in India Monday that it is working with pharmacists to work out the handwriting of doctors. The feature, which will be rolled out on Google Lens, will allow users to either take a picture of the prescription or upload one from the photo library. Once the image is processed, the app detects and highlights the medicines mentioned in the note, a Google executive demonstrated.