People who often find themselves undertaking research in a library or museum could well encounter a text written in a language different to their own.
While online translation solutions are now readily available, retyping the troublesome word, phrase or page onto a smartphone using a virtual keyboard can quickly become a tiresome task. The Quicktionary TS Premium from Wizcom Technologies allows the user to scan the text into the device and a built-in word and phrase dictionary offers up the translation on the included screen. There pen-like device also has a built-in speaker to help those who want to learn how to pronounce the scanned word or line of text.
Scanning pen manufacturer Wizcom Technologies has developed its handheld scanning translators to help people working in multilingual environments, and its latest device has a 128 pixel linear array optical scanning head at 400 DPI resolution, a 5-way navigation button and is powered by an 80Hz ARM 7 Thumb/Debug/Multiplier/ICE (TDMI) processor. Its five line, monochrome, 2.4 x 0.8-inch (61 x 20mm), 208 x 65 pixel resolution LCD touchscreen display offers either abridged or complete definition/translation and includes a virtual keyboard for manual input using the included stylus.
The combined dictionary and scanner is said to offer immediate word-by-word translation, can handle single words or a full line of text and includes slang, idioms, phrases and inflections.
