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Instagram now supports three right-to-left languages
You can post and comment in more than 24 different languages via Instagram already, but they've all been left-to-right languages like English. Instagram just announced that it has added Arabic, Hebrew and Farsi languages -- all of which read right to left. The three languages will be available on the Android version of Instagram first.
The Big Picture: A Robot writing the Torah in longhand
A robot arm in the Berlin Jewish Museum is hard at work, carefully inking thousands of Hebrew letters on an 80-meter (260-foot) scroll. In about three months, it will have transcribed the entire Torah "by hand," a process that normally takes Jewish scribes about a year. The robot's penmanship is delicate and exact, but its work is merely an exhibit: the completed work won't be considered holy. "In order for the Torah to be holy, it has to be written with a goose feather on parchment," explains Rabbi Reuven Yaacobov. "The process has to be filled with meaning, and I'm saying prayers while I'm writing it." Yaacobov and the Robot are part of "The Creation of the World," a new exhibit at the museum that highlights the significance of Hebrew handwriting. Yaacobov is on hand to show patrons how the Torah is written traditionally, and to explain the religious significance of the process. The human element will only be on site until August 3rd, but his robotic companion will be writing Hebrew scriptures until January of next year. [Image credit: Adam Berry, Getty Images]
Vatican and Oxford libraries scan ancient works, let scholars stay in their armchairs
Two of the world's most hallowed libraries are about to get even quieter, having been given $3 million to go with the flow and put some of their oldest collections online. The Vatican Library and Oxford University's Bodleian Library will together offer up 1.5 million pages of hoary text, including Gutenberg's Latin Bible from the 15th Century, a 1,200-year-old Hebrew codex called the "Sifra," and enough Greek philosophy to make even Homer seem succinct. At the end of a five-year flatbed scanner marathon, these digital copies will be accessible to speakers of dead languages everywhere, and hopefully for less than sacrilegious prices.
Twitter brings support for right-to-left languages: volunteers by done localization
Twitter's now available in Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu, with the task of translating the likes of the retweet button, list classifications and the fail whale largely done by a task force of volunteers. The languages were added to Twitter's translation to-do list back in January, with around 13,000 helpers getting the job done since then. You can change your settings to one of the newly supported languages in the drop-down account menu, while Twitter continues to plug more linguistic holes at its translation center -- interested polyglots can consult the second source below.
iBless Torah provides a mobile trainer for Bar/Bat Mitzvah students
On the eve of the most important holiday in the Jewish calendar -- Yom Kippur, the day of atonement -- it's traditional for observant Jews to seek forgiveness for the wrongs they have done to friends and family over the past year. For me, it's far too late to atone for my slack study habits back when I was preparing for my Bar Mitzvah, but perhaps I can help out some struggling Hebrew school students out there with a quick pointer to the $1.99 iBless Torah app, a learning assistant specifically for the rite of passage for 13-year-olds. iBless Torah includes the traditional blessings that kids learn & chant during their ceremonies, with audio assistance and word-by-word indications. I checked with the nearest available rabbinic authority -- my wife, whose ordination as a rabbi is scheduled for May -- and she gave it a thumbs-up. I'll let her feedback take it from here: The Hebrew chanting is clear and slow, with each word highlighting as it's chanted, so it's easy to follow. I like that in the Settings you can choose to see just Hebrew, just transliteration, or both. The 'About the Blessings' section gives good, concise information and there's a translation of the Torah blessings, which is nice. I'd like to see a translation of the Haftarah blessings added to the app. All the English explanations and translations refer to God as He, Him, and Lord; I would prefer gender-neutral language for God, but of course using masculine terminology when referring to God is very common. The Reform Jewish tradition uses a blessing after the Haftarah that is significantly different from the one in this app. For the other three blessings, however, I would recommend this app to my students who are learning the Torah and Haftarah blessings. Davka's other apps are worth checking out, as well. Good luck, kids, and remember: just imagine that the congregation is sitting there in their underwear. If that helps at all.
New MIT software learns an entire dead language in just a few hours
Whenever we boot up our time machines, cruise back to 1200 B.C., and try to pick up chicks at our favorite wine bar in Western Syria, our rudimentary knowledge of Ugaritic is usually more embarrassing than helpful. The good folks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have us stoked on some new software we hope to have in pocket form soon. It analyzes an unknown language by comparing letter and word patterns to another known language (in Ugaritic's case, its close cousin is Hebrew) and spits out a translation quickly, using precious little computing power. To give some perspective, it took archaeologists four years to do the same thing back in 1928. It's not quite Berlitz yet, but this proof of concept is kind of like the Michael Jordan of computational linguists -- it's probably the first time that machine translations of dead scripts has been proven effective. If we plug some hopeful numbers into our TI-83, we calculate that we'll be inserting our own genes into the ancient Syrian pool in a matter of months. Thanks, MIT! [Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons]
Mio's Believer GPS puts POIs, Book of Psalms at your fingertips
Mio has had some fun products in the past (well, at least one), and if you're among the great number of our mitzva-observant readership this item should be right up your proverbial alley. The Ma'amin (Hebrew for "Believer") is a GPS unit available in Israel. Besides the maps and the POIs (including holy sites, synagogues, cemeteries, and ritual baths) this guy includes the Book of Psalms, a Hebrew calendar, and plenty of prayers and blessings. Additionally, the device keeps things on the up and up by only speaking in a man's voice and cutting out the telephone and internet access. Prices start at around $240.
Scientists inscribe entire Bible onto pinhead
And you thought that fellow who managed to fit your entire name -- middle initial included -- onto a grain of rice was hot stuff. Apparently, a team of nanotechnology experts at the Technion institute in Haifa were able to etch some 300,000 words (Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible) onto a minuscule silicon surface "less than half the size of a grain of sugar." The feat was accomplished by "blasting tiny particles called gallium ions at an object that then rebounded, causing an etching affect," and was reportedly done in order to show that copious quantities of data could eventually be stored on bio-molecules and DNA. Oh, and it only took about sixty minutes to finish the job.[Image courtesy of ChicagoSpots]
Yeah? Well Zune you, buddy!
It's not like Zune was a really cool name in the first place, but this is too good. Looks like 'zune' means something ... um ... special, in Hebrew. From ISerializable:"I'm not sure how much the marketing people at Microsoft are aware of this, but "Zune" - their new portable player, has a very "naughty" meaning in Hebrew. How Naughty? Let's just say that if I were to use it in a sentence it could look like this: "Would you like to get "Z-une"d and have a cigarette afterwards?" In fact, it's enough to utter the header on the ZuneScene page to crack up a little smile if you know a little Hebrew :"Dude, You're getting a Zune!"Could be worse, they could have called it the Phantom. [Via Let's Kill Dave]
