Word Lens augmented reality app instantly translates whatever you point it at


Augmented reality
and optical character recognition have just come into their own, beautifully intertwined into an instant translation app for the iPhone. Download Word Lens, pay $4.99 for a language pack, then point it at a sign and watch as it replaces every word with one in your native tongue. It’s a little bit like Pleco, but without the whole language learning stuff. We just gave it a spin, and while it’s not quite as accurate as this video claims, it’s still breathtaking to behold — especially as it doesn’t require an internet connection to do any lookup. Sadly, it only translates to and from English and Spanish for now. Still, Babelfish, eat your heart out.

Update: Looks like it only works on iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and the latest iPod touch for now.

Word Lens augmented reality app instantly translates whatever you point it at originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Dec 2010 00:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CyberNotes: Fast Dictionary Definitions in Windows and Macs

This article was written on May 27, 2008 by CyberNet.

CyberNotes
Time Saving Tuesday

It’s crazy to think about how unpopular encyclopedias have become thanks to the various references found online, and the same thing is happening to dictionaries. These days word processors (and other apps) are integrating dictionaries so that they are even more useful to the end user. The next logical step for dictionaries is a system-wide integration, which gives the user access to definitions from within any application.

What we’ve got in store for you today is how you can maximize the convenience factor of system-wide dictionaries for both Mac OS X and Windows. You can literally retrieve definitions and synonyms within seconds if you know the right keys to press. ;)

–Mac Dictionary–

arrow Mac Mac only arrow
If you’re a Mac user you probably know about the built-in dictionary/thesaurus that you can pull up at a moments notice. What you may not know, however, is that in Cocoa applications such as Safari, iChat, and Mail you can also get in-place definitions. Just hover your mouse over a word and press Command+Control+D to bring up the definition:

mac dictionary.png

The menu in the bottom-left corner will let you switch between viewing a dictionary definition and synonyms from the thesaurus. Unfortunately this doesn’t work in non-Cocoa applications such as Firefox.

–WordWeb for Windows–

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
Last week one of our commenters, “skh.pcola,” pointed out a fabulous application called WordWeb. It operates much like the built-in dictionary on the Mac, except that it is compatible with nearly all Windows applications. The simplicity of WordWeb is really what makes this an indispensable app for any Windows user. Just Control+Click as you hover over a word and you’ll instantly see a definition appear:

wordweb definition.png

If you don’t know how to pronounce a word just click the speaker button towards the upper-right corner. This only uses the built-in Windows text-to-speech engine to speak the word, but it will give you some idea as to how it’s actually pronounced.

wordweb antonyms.pngWordWeb comes with 150,000 words and 120,000 synonym sets making it ideal even when you’re not connected to the Internet. It offers definitions, synonyms, antonyms, and more all in one place.

One thing that I want to point out is that there will sometimes be plus/minus signs when viewing different tabs, such as the antonyms pictured to the right. Clicking the plus sign will add more results by making the search criteria less restrictive, and the minus sign will do just the opposite.

There is support for viewing Wikipedia articles from within the application, but it’s nothing to really jump up and down over. It doesn’t modify the layout of the page at all, and is really no different than viewing the actual article in your browser:

wordweb wikipedia.jpg

Interestingly the free version of WordWeb has a license unlike any other that I’ve seen. They are actually trying to help the environment with the restrictions they’ve imposed:

WordWeb free version may be used indefinitely only by people who take at most two commercial flights (not more than one return flight) in any 12 month period. People who fly more than this need to purchase the Pro version if they wish to continue use it after a 30-day trial period.

–Overview–

Now if those aren’t two fast ways to get dictionary definitions then I don’t know what is. Drop a comment below with the tools you use to lookup words, whether it be a site like Dictionary.com or an application.

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Freespire RC1 Download, Review, And Screenshots

This article was written on August 02, 2006 by CyberNet.

Freespire RC1 Download, Review, And Screenshots

Linux can be a pain to get use to if you have been using Windows for years and years. Freespire is aiming to capture those Windows users and win their hearts over. A review of Freespire RC1 (with screenshots) talks about how smooth it runs even on machines that already have an Operating System installed:

Installing the operating system to co-exist with another OS is still a bit tricky. When you first install Freespire on a PC that already has an operating system on its hard drive that you want to keep, you’ll run into a message telling you that you’ll need to restart and first run the disk partitioning tool, and then install Freespire.

After that, installing the system was smooth sailing. The installation program said it would take about ten minutes, and that’s what it took. Everything on a PC should be so easy!

So even though it started off a bit bumpy things worked out really nice in the end. Once you start diving into Freespire you will probably stumble upon Click-n-Run (CNR) which is one of Linspire’s most popular features. Using CNR will make installing programs just a single click away. It does cost $20 a year but you can test it out for 30-days to see if you really need it.

Before switching back to Windows to use your favorite applications like Photoshop you should checkout this guide. It shows you how to get all your favorite Windows apps over to Linux using Wine. You’ll find software like WinRAR, DVDShrink, and iTunes running on your Linux box. Using Linux has never been so easy!

Download Freespire RC1

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Apple Mac App Store: open for business starting January 6th

Consider the rumors quelled. Despite whispers that Apple would be starting up the Mac App Store in the final year of this decade (or the first of the next, depending on perspective), the Cupertino giant has just affirmed that it’ll be 2011 before the general populace gets to dig their hands into it. January 6th is the opening date for the Mac App Store, and unfortunately for those still humming along on OS X 10.5, it’ll be a Snow Leopard-only affair. Smack dab in the middle of CES, Apple plans to unleash the store in 90 countries, and it’ll feature “paid and free apps in categories like Education, Games, Graphics & Design, Lifestyle, Productivity and Utilities.” Naturally, it’ll be a free update, and it’ll work more or less exactly like the App Store does on your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. As with those outlets, developers are able to set their own prices and then keep 70 percent of the revenue (provided it’s a paid app). So, who’s ready to blow a little Santa cash to ring in the new year?

Continue reading Apple Mac App Store: open for business starting January 6th

Apple Mac App Store: open for business starting January 6th originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 08:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mozilla’s Progress on Platform-Specific Themes

This article was written on January 17, 2008 by CyberNet.

Firefox 3 Mac 
(Click to Enlarge)

We’ve known about Mozilla’s plans to provide platform specific themes to users in Firefox 3, and it looks as though some glimpses of what the future holds is now in our hands. Those of you on a Mac and testing out Firefox 3 nightlies are able to install an extension dubbed as Proto for Mac OS X. Once installed you’ll be able to see all of the eye candy that’s pictured above.

Proto is an official add-on that’s currently being offered as an easy way for people to checkout the new theme. The latest version was just released today, and sports a new look for the add-ons window, revamped find bar, better downloads window, and more.

Don’t worry, they haven’t forgotten about the Linux users either. An article written last week demonstrates how the appearance of Firefox 3 is changing for Linux users:

Firefox 3 Linux 
(Click to Enlarge)

And then there are also supposed to be separate Windows XP and Vista themes in the works which will use the icons that we’ve already seen. It will be interesting to see just how much the two different operating systems differ from each other, but as of right now there’s no word on when they plan to have the Windows theme integrated.

There’s still no mention of the next Firefox 3 milestone, but we’ll keep our eyes open.

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Hmm…SUSE Linux Enterprise the Vista Replacement?

This article was written on January 19, 2007 by CyberNet.

SUSE Linux Now before I get started I want to say that I use openSUSE as my choice of Linux distribution and couldn’t be happier with it. They always seem to be on top of implementing new technologies that are easy-to-use and really appealing to those who want the latest and greatest. For example, the latest version of openSUSE includes a new KDE Start Menu that is unlike anything you’ll find in other Linux distributions.

With that being said I think Novell, the company that develops SUSE, might be taking things a little far now. They have started a website that compares their Enterprise operating system with Windows Vista, in hopes of attracting more customers. Sure, that sounds like normal competition at first but the only comparisons that they make are the ones that favor them…with the most obvious being pricing.

Novell provides a table (pictured below) that demonstrates the pricing difference between the two major versions of Vista and SUSE Linux Enterprise. They then go on to show you what the total cost (with maintenance) would be over the next year and three years, but they conveniently don’t have maintenance cost information available for their operating system, so they leave that number out of the total.

SUSE Vista Pricing

It is definitely fair for them to do such a comparison because I could have seen Microsoft doing the same thing is the situation was reversed, but this was the part that really caught my attention:

The license costs for Windows Vista Ultimate with Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 reaches a whopping $1,078. With SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, you receive over 90 percent of the functionality of Vista and Office for less than 10 percent of the price.

90 percent of the functionality? That sounds a little high especially if you think about the applications businesses run on their machines that probably won’t work right on Linux. I guess they are probably talking about general features, like managing photos, but that still irks me a little bit.

As far as maintenance goes I would say that the cost to maintain SUSE would be much higher than it would be for Vista. Unless you’re able to get a staff that completely understands Linux the cost for supporting the system and paying IT professionals to do training would probably total more than upgrading to Vista.

I guess that is the end of my rant, which I try not to do very often, but it seems like they are misleading people a little bit. I agree that almost all versions of Linux are probably more secure than Windows, which is probably the area that Novell should have tried to focus the attention on.

What does everyone else think about this? Is Novell going about this the wrong way or are they smart for pursuing the marketing so aggressively?

News Source: Desktop Linux

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Navigon’s MobileNavigator 1.7 update adds universal iPad integration, Retina Display support, and more

We’ve maintained for quite some time that Navigon’s MobileNavigator app was leaps and bounds better than most of the similarly priced alternatives, and if you just so happen to already own it, you can look forward to a rather sizable update this morning. The newest build — which should be percolating through the iTunes tunnels as we speak — takes things to v1.7, and it essentially includes a half-dozen new features: universal iPad integration, Zagat Survey, Active Lane Assistant, Map Reporter, enhanced Retina Display support and new user notifications. Furthermore, the outfit’s announcing a series of free single-feature apps for the iPhone in 2011, with help2park launching today; as you might imagine, this one assists in finding a parking space nearby, and it’s being offered gratis. The outfit has alerted us that all MobileNavigator US MyRegion apps should see the update right about now, while the USA and North America versions will “follow soon.” Oh, and if you’re curious about those new add-ons, the Zagat will cost you $7.99 (it’s on sale at the moment for $5.99), Traffic Live will run $19.99 and the Panorama View 3D tacks on another $9.99. The full skinny is just after the break, per usual.

Continue reading Navigon’s MobileNavigator 1.7 update adds universal iPad integration, Retina Display support, and more

Navigon’s MobileNavigator 1.7 update adds universal iPad integration, Retina Display support, and more originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 06:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google App Inventor opens up access to everyone, clings on to beta tag

Google’s famous penchant for keeping things in beta doesn’t seem to have changed lately, as the company’s App Inventor for Android is still keeping its Greek lettering, but at least access has now been opened up for everyone to enjoy. The switch from private to public beta isn’t the most significant thing in the world — up until now you just had to ask for an invite to get one — but we’re sure amateur Android coders and experimenters will appreciate not having to go through that extra step. The App Inventor’s sitting in Google Labs right this minute, waiting for you to magic up (no coding skills required!) a finely crafted solution to modern living of your own. Hit the source link to get your mouse pointer dirty.

Google App Inventor opens up access to everyone, clings on to beta tag originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 05:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows Vista RC2 Download Page Was Temporarily Available

This article was written on October 05, 2006 by CyberNet.

Vista Logo Last night the Windows Vista RC2 download page was temporarily viewable but the download links were still unavailable. Apparently Microsoft didn’t want the world to be able to view the page quite yet because they promptly removed it as the word started to spread.

Paul Thurrott also went on to update his article saying that the build string for RC2 has been bumped to 5744.16384.061003-1945 but they still have plans to ship it tomorrow. That kind of surprised me because the build was just compiled on October 3 which means they would have only less than 3-days to test it, and typically they test it for about a week before releasing it.

Using the new build string that Paul provided and the link to the Vista RC2 download page these should be the direct links to the ISO images. They will probably make the ISO images available before the actual page which means these are the links to watch (assuming they don’t change builds again):

There has also been a lot of fuss over the new “anti-piracy feature” that Microsoft has been talking about. Basically if you don’t activate the computer within 30-days then it will run in reduced-functionality mode. Just like always I’m sure there will be plenty of hackers rushing to be the first one to crack Microsoft’s “top-notch” security mechanisms. I say it will take less than a few days to see cracks floating around and the more Microsoft says how great it is the faster it will probably be done.

Thanks for the tip Jason!

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New Live Installer, Live Writer, & Photo Gallery

This article was written on September 05, 2007 by CyberNet.

Windows Live Installer

It looks like Microsoft is pulling a Google and offering their most popular apps in a unified package. Well, it’s not exactly like the Google Pack because Microsoft is only including their own homegrown programs, whereas Google also includes some third-party software (such as Norton and Skype).

The site you’ll need to visit for the unified installer is http://get.live.com/wl/all. It is currently available (for me at least) with several new releases of their applications, such as Live Messenger 8.5, Live Writer, and Live Photo Gallery. Here’s everything that’s included:

  • Windows Live Mail (email)
  • NEW Windows Live Photo Gallery (photo management) – This is similar to the built-in Vista Photo Gallery, but it has some new enhancements. The great thing is that it is available on versions of Windows prior to Vista as well.
  • NEW Windows Live Writer (desktop blog publisher) – I haven’t been able to tell much of what’s new in this release, but the build number is 12.0.1277.816 and it’s labeled as “Version 2008″ instead of “1.0″. The only thing I’ve seen new so far is a built-in “Insert Video” option and the ability to justify text. I’ll make a separate post regarding this app when I get more information on the changes. UPDATE: Here’s a list of what’s new
  • Windows Live OneCare Family Safety (parental controls)
  • NEW Windows Live Messenger 8.5 (instant messenger)
  • Windows Live Toolbar (for your browser)

And here’s a video of how the entire process works:

Source: Vista Blog

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