I have always wanted to visit the Orient. I an enamored with its culture. But, like so many Westerners, I can’t speak the languages. When I try, it sounds awful (especially since I have a slight New Jersey accent to boot.)
I have been watching for a while all of these translator applications that can convert English to whatever language you need, etc. There are already some available for mobile phones. But its always a one-to-one language. Always English to Spanish, or English to Japanese. What if you were traveling all over the Orient and needed Chines and Japanese? Well, it looks like Toshiba, the well known laptop manufacturer has decided to work on the problem. They have created a software application that can run on a mobile phone that is trilingual.
From the Hot Hardware article:
The app is designed to be ran completely on one’s mobile phone, which will eliminate costly data roaming fees that are generally incurred using other systems that require an Internet connection to retrieve translations. The system is trilingual in nature, and in essence, it’s a smashed version of a PC app that already exists. It enables users to translate freely between Japanese, Chinese and English. Initially, the software employs speech recognition to determine the language and what has been said, and then it uses either machine translation or rule-based machine translation to break the phrases down and convert them into another language.
The software is going to be available for Windows Mobile phones first, then branch out to Blackberry and iPhone.
I guess I ‘d better start saving for that trip after all….and learn to suppress the Jersey girl within.
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