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DS doubles up as notebook for Wii kanji trainer
Anybody who has attempted to learn how to correctly write kanji will know that the process involves a bewildering number of rules. Memorizing rules is stressful enough, but practicing your kanji skills with a Wii Remote would surely only make the experience more frustrating.This meant that IE Institute faced a potential dilemma when developing its Wii-bound kanji trainer, 250 Mannin no Kanken Wii de Tokoton Kanji Nou, yet the developer found a graceful, elegant solution: throw in a spot of DS-Wii connectivity, and let users input kanji characters on the DS's touchscreen, which is perfect for handwriting (as other games have already ably demonstrated). There's been nowhere enough DS-Wii connectivity for our liking, yet this is easily one of the better uses of the feature to date.
D3 teaches Simple English
We knew about the last two volumes in D3 Publisher's Simple DS series: Vol. 39 THE Shouboutai (Firefighter) and Vol. 40 THE Gekai (Surgeon), both of which are games that involve real-world tasks. But the three entries in the series preceding those were unknown to us. They happen to be rooted in the everyday world as well, in a much less game-like way than the others. In fact, they're training non-games for the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication). Vol. 36 THE Arc de Minitsuku! TOEIC Test Bunpou Tokkun (Master the Arc! TOEIC Intensive Grammar Training), Vol. 37 THE Arc de Minitsuku! TOEIC Test Listening Kyoka (TOEIC Listening Enhancement), and Vol. 38 THE Arc de Manabu! TOEIC Test Hajimete (Study the Arc! Beginning the TOEIC) all focus on different aspects of the English test, which is used to determine English proficiency for business use. We hope they were at least made to a higher standard than other Simple titles, or that nobody relies on them as study aids. If they are actually okay, D3 may be on to something: their usual low budgets would translate excellently to "games" that rely almost entirely on text menus.Read: Vol. 36 THE Arc de Minitsuku! TOEIC Test Bunpou TokkunRead: Vol. 37 THE Arc de Minitsuku! TOEIC Test Listening KyokaRead: Vol. 38 THE Arc de Manabu! TOEIC Test Hajimete
iRiver's latest super e-dictionary, the D25
We got such a great response to our post on NHC's Magic-Talker Color Personal Multi-lingual Assistant that we knew you just couldn't wait for another "does-it-all" foreign electronic dictionary. This one, however, comes from a company that's a little more recognizable: good old iRiver. The third in their series of e-dictionaries, the D25 doesn't sound like it'll be all that different from the D20 we saw last year, although the subdued black and burgundy design has been replaced by a polished white perhaps meant to fool folks into thinking they're getting a Nintendo DS. As usual, machine translation has thwarted our best attempts to learn the full specs on this one; although we do know that it sports a 4.3-inch screen, 1.3GB internal capacity, SD / MMC slot, MP3 support, and an FM radio, we can't tell how many dictionaries are preloaded (our best guess is between 22 and 51) nor what type they are (some seem to be translation, while others probably provide definitions). Either way, there's definitely some conversation helpers in there to help you pass the TOEIC exam, as well as a strange pseudo-scientific feature that uses a "periodic hazard brain wave" to help the little ones get their study on. Since there's no mention of video playback here, we're gonna stick with the Magic-Talker for now, but die-hard iRiver fans should be able to pick these multifunctional wonders up as soon as next week.[Via DAPreview]
NHC's Magic-Talker Color Personal Multi-lingual Assistant
Chances are good that if you're reading this publication you already have a pretty decent grasp of English (probably better than ours, in fact), but for the native Japanese speaker looking to brush up on his/her foreign language skills, we can't think of a device better suited for the task than NHC's rather awkwardly-named Magic-Talker Color Personal Multi-lingual Assistant. Like previous offerings we've seen from Sharp, iRiver, and Franklin, the USB 2.0-compatible Magic-Talker contains numerous dictionaries along with incorporating MP3 and WMA music playback functionality, but those goodies are just the tip of the iceberg. You're also getting tons of conversation tutorials -- complete with animated representations on the full color QVGA display -- and several practice tests for acing the TOEIC exam and impressing business colleagues with your copious English skillz. But that's not all, as this 256MB device (upgradable by 2GB with an SD card) also supports DivX and MPEG-4 video playback (with a TV out for vids up to 640 x 480 at 30fps) and sports an FM tuner (with direct recording, of course), line-in recording, and the ubiquitous voice recorder for practicing your pronunciation. Games, a calculator, and an E-Book reader are also standard, making the ¥44,800 ($386) LM-500J (as it's officially known) seem like a veritable steal compared to similarly-priced devices without nearly as many features. Throw in some WiFi, Bluetooth, and WLAN radios, and we'd even buy one, though we couldn't for the life of us tell you the difference between kanji, katakana, and hiragana.[Via Impress]
