Category Archives: Language Technology

Wordnik Smartwords: E-books just got schooled

Posted on June 15, 2010 by Kevin

If you’re reading books as E-books on E-readers or iPads, chances are you’d like to exploit the new platform by making reading more interactive. E-readers already have built-in dictionaries, but now the Smartwords open standard from the Wordnik online dictionary … Continue reading →

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Lingro: Free Web page translation by word and more

Posted on November 30, 2007 by Kevin

You can get whole Web pages translated (Google Language Tools, Babel Fish, etc.), but here’s a free tool to translate any individual word on a Web page you want: Lingro (via Education Week). Lingro works for English-English and both to … Continue reading →

Posted in English as a Second / Foreign Language, Foreign Languages, LANGUAGE, Language Technology, Language-Sites, Words / Dictionaries | Comments Off

Follow-up: Help test internationalized domain names

Posted on October 16, 2007 by Kevin

As I reported last week (Help test internationalized domain names 2007-10-15), the time has come to see how non-Latin characters will work in domain names. The Internet administrators at ICANN have set up test domains (http://example.test) in eleven writing systems. … Continue reading →

Posted in Foreign Languages, LANGUAGE, Language Technology | 1 Comment

Help test internationalized domain names 2007-10-15

Posted on October 12, 2007 by Kevin

As I mentioned over a year ago (More writing systems for Internet addresses), Internet domains are biased towards English speakers. You have to use only the Latin alphabet (without accents), Arabic numerals, and hyphens (all English ASCII characters) for Web … Continue reading →

Posted in Foreign Languages, LANGUAGE, Language Technology | 1 Comment

Picture this: Zlango linguistic icons for cellphones and Web

Posted on October 12, 2007 by Kevin

You can liven up your cellphone/mobile phone messages and send Web messages and E-cards with Zlango icons (zlango.com/icons) [EDIT (6//6/10): dead link] (note: includes a few off-color terms) (via TechCrunch). Icons Zlango currently has over 200 icons (219, including at … Continue reading →

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IBM brings animated avatars to sign-language translation

Posted on September 21, 2007 by Kevin

Imagine you’re a signing Deaf person and you find out about a spoken lecture. You need a human interpreter, but there’s no time. What do you do? In the UK, soon you’ll be able to use IBM UK’s Say It … Continue reading →

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Free audio phrase books for phones

Posted on July 6, 2007 by Kevin

Just under a year ago (Mobile words) I wrote about Coolgorilla’s free audio phrase books for iPods. Those are now free with a purchase of something from travel/tourism site lastminute.com. But the new version, Talking Mobile Phrase Books, for cellphones/mobile … Continue reading →

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MS Office to embrace regional Britishisms

Posted on May 1, 2007 by Kevin

Coming soon, from the people who brought you sickie (“sick day”; see my November post: MS Office embraces Australianisms): British regional dialect words for Microsoft Office 2007 products. You can offer your suggestions to judge Jonathan Robinson, curator of English … Continue reading →

Posted in Dialects, LANGUAGE, Language Technology, Words / Dictionaries | Comments Off

British Sign Language mobile dictionary

Posted on March 19, 2007 by Kevin

Now Brits who want to communicate with the signing Deaf can get British Sign Language (BSL) signs downloaded to their cellphones/mobile phones. The Centre for Deaf Studies at the University of Bristol (site) has developed a free BSL dictionary called … Continue reading →

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Better cellphone video for Deaf signers?

Posted on February 14, 2007 by Kevin

If you use American Sign Language (ASL) or another sign language to communicate, how do you participate in the cellphone/mobile phone revolution? You don’t very much. You participate in the texting (and E-mail) revolution using written English or another language, … Continue reading →

Posted in LANGUAGE, Language Technology, Sign Languages | 1 Comment