This combines several things already out there (speech2text / translation) into something really useful. When does it hit Japan shores and our mountains?
※ The demo shown in the video is of the travel version on a DoCoMo phone which NEC sees as being useful for Japanese who need instant phrase translation instead of single words as most electronic dictionaries do. The average translation time from Japanese to English/Chinese is two seconds to recognize the Japanese and fourteen for the complete translation.
As AZUMA Junichi, I think emoji's / emoticons could be the first truly universal language. The heavy use of emoji's in our daily written conversations by phone or computer are truly amazing. And this will only increase with "mobile connectedness".
Not related, but interesting nonetheless:
When I was in Tokyo in 2003 I wondered why the top level domain .ch was so interesting for my hosts - they created a japanese website with a .ch domain at that moment. I guess I found the answer now: 2ch or 2channel (Wikipedia entry).
And last but not least: QR Code for mobile bookmarking of this post
http://d.kaywa.com/ +2020400102 (Short Code for this blog) + 845 (blog post ID)
=
http://qrcode.kaywa.com/img.php?s=4&d=http%3A%2F%2Fd.kaywa.com%2F2020400102845
Please help spread this story. Today at the AIB (Association of International Broadcasters) awards ceremony a small African radio station, SW Radio Africa, won the award for the most creative marketing concept. But while they are doing wonderful work, this is something that needs immediate and urgent support.
Briefly, Zimbabwe is a poor African country where the economy has collapsed (latest inflation just during the month of October was 15,000 percent) and the government is very corrupt. And the government censors the media.
SW Radio Africa is the independent Zimbabwe news source broadcasting on shortwave radio out of neighboring South Africa. Except that now Zimbabwe of course also blocks their radio broadcasts.
So the Forox Mobile Applications bit? SW Radio Africa decided, if you censor my broadcasts, then I go SMS.. Pretty clever by the small radio station where TV is not a viable option and internet/PC penetration is nearly zero. But there are plenty of cheap old second hand mobile phones..
So SMS. Zimbabweans can't afford even to pay for the SMS. So SW Radio Africa sends the news free to anyone in Zimbabwe who signs up to the service. Over 6,000 have signed up and they are adding 100 new subscribers every day.
So they don't do advertising but someone has to pay for the SMS. SW Radio Africa asks for sponsors to cover the cost of the SMS transmissions.
So here is my request. If you think this is a worthy cause, that a free radio station broadcasting news into Zimbabwe is on a good task, and that since they are now blocked by the Zimbabwe government, SMS text messaging is a reasonable alternative to get past the censorship, then please do spread the story. Lets try to find some supporters and further sponsors for SW Radio Africa. Lets get some news and information to the poor devastated people in Zimbabwe.
W3C's Mobile Web Initiative is a Premier Association Sponsor of Mobile Internet World to be held at the Hynes Convention Center, 13-15 November 2007, in Boston, MA, USA.
Founded by Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, W3C's goals include providing the technical framework to allow any user with any device the freedom and power to use the Web anywhere and at any time. W3C's Mobile Web Initiative is a key component of W3C's "One Web" vision.
NTT and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation grant royalty-free licenses of the essential patents for Camellia in order to establish a leadership role toward achieving a low-cost secure advanced telecommunication society through the proliferation and promotion of Camellia that contribute to the construction of an environment in which various security products and services can be used widely.
One way to think of this is to think of RSS in terms of comand. Each command or feature in the user experience is wrapped into a meta language of context. This language of context will drive the use cases and the rendering. We do not only separate funtion and presentation we make function and context interdependant.
With such an operating system we would tear down classic application boundaries: like calling, camera, idle, and calendar into a fluid dynamic environment. For example if the user is on a call and the lens cap is opened, one could immediately create an video link between the user and the remote party and enable the important ”see what I see” use case. The user experience needs to encourage the switching of modes in conversations. The devices need to support: See, Look, here, where, and touch types of tasks, typical in any real life conversation. It would become vitality rich.
I think this kind of device and system could be a massive hit in emerging markets where they choose a mobile before they buy a computer.
