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Four widgets for learning
While the app store ecosystem for the iPhone, and now iPad, are filled with a host of useful apps to help students convert, translate and calculate figures and words, there may be times where an iPhone or iPad app just don't fit into your workflow. Back when Mac OS X Tiger was launched, which happened to be back when we all had to walk through 10 miles of snow to get to school, came the advent of Dashboard. In addition to the bundled widgets provided by Apple, one can access a robust library of widgets provided by third parties. Here are four useful Dashboard widgets for learning.
Google working on voice translator phone, redefining synergy
Okay, so Google has this expansive online translation service, which we all know, use, and sometimes even love. Google also has its own branded phone, with a voice recognition function that we frankly adore. So what's a brave new age company with bottomless pockets to do but try to splice the two together into some kind of omnilingual instant translator? Speech-to-speech translation -- long the exclusive plaything of fanciful sci-fi writers -- is said by Franz Och, Google's head of translation services, to be a viable possibility within a measly couple of years. The Mountain View approach to overcoming the inherent problems of variable pitch, tone and accents in speech will be to use each person's phone to accrue data on his or her linguistic idiosyncrasies, so that the more the phone's voice recognition is used, the more accurate it becomes. Sounds tres bien to us.
Google Translate ported to iPhone
You know if the App Store has been out for a month and we're posting about a web app, it has to be a good one. Google announced late last week that they've brought the terrific Google Translate service over to the iPhone. Of course, whenever you travel internationally, roaming charges (sometimes huge ones) can come into play, but if you find yourself tooling around Spain and need more phrases than ¿Dónde está el baño? or Tú eres mi chica, Google's web app will do the trick fast and easy.And there's some nice coding in there, too -- the phrases translated get stored on the client side of the phone, so if you've already translated something, you don't have to reload the page to see it again. To use the service, just point your MobileSafari to translate.google.com. Folks in other countries probably still won't care too much what you have to say, but at least they'll know what you're saying.
