Impressions: Six-in-one Translator (DSiWare)
by Griffin McElroy 
{ Jun 4th 2009 at 6:45PM } 
Translator is a neat little application. It's got a huge dictionary of words from six languages: English, Japanese, Spanish, French, Italian and German. You can enter in a word from one of those languages and find its definition in the other five -- but the impressive thing about it is the input method. Aside from the keyboard and handwriting methods you've seen before on Nintendo's handheld, you can use the DSi camera to take a picture of text you wish to translate, crop the image around the word using the stylus, then see it in five other languages.
In the brief demo we checked out, the user took a picture of a few characters in a Japanese menu. He highlighted the characters by dragging the stylus across them. The software quickly recognized the characters in a matter of moments, and provided their definition in the other five languages -- "consume," etc. If the full product works as well as the brief demo we saw, the Six-in-One Translator could end up being the software that justifies the very existence of the DSiWare platform.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
required @ Jun 4th 2009 6:51PM
Sounds sort of like Sony's Talkman for the PSP
required @ Jun 4th 2009 6:52PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4dksIymo-U
Mabui @ Jun 4th 2009 7:19PM
Well - it's obvious that is only good for picking up large gay men.
ArchiGamer @ Jun 4th 2009 6:53PM
Sweet. Still need a DSi, though.
James @ Jun 4th 2009 6:54PM
Does it work for kanji? I've been using the other DS kanji dictionaries but it would be cool to have a multi purpose one. Maybe I could re-learn German...
thesimplicity @ Jun 4th 2009 7:13PM
"...the Six-in-One Translator could end up being the software that justifies the very existence of the DSiWare platform."
Yeah, because those Art Style games are just terrible!
Adolph @ Jun 4th 2009 7:37PM
From what I heard the Art style games are good, but are not as good as the Wii versions so far.
I wouldn't say those are worthy of buying a different system over. I love my DS Lite and until DSi only games released and significant DSi Ware stuff is online than I'll consider moving from DS Lite to DSi.
I have a decent collection of GBA games and I would hate to need to buy a GBA SP as well as a DSi . That's two purchases.
KaBob799 @ Jun 4th 2009 7:48PM
@Adolph
Why not just keep your Lite instead of selling it? It's never bad to have a backup.
thesimplicity @ Jun 4th 2009 7:52PM
I personally think Pictobits is the best Art Style game yet (this is coming from someone who imported all the bit generations titles) and has fully justified my DSi purchase. Plus the screen is better for my failing geriatric eyes.
verymetal @ Jun 4th 2009 7:31PM
I wonder if it will have the word "Blumpkin" in the universal dictionary.
Adolph @ Jun 4th 2009 7:39PM
I have a similar widget for my Mac. It's very useful, and having this on a portable and having it saved onto memory to pull out at any time is nice.
This is a worthwhile program for DSi.
Now do a TI-83 calculator and Online Pictochat that works with my Cell phone provider as text messages and that will great.
NukeAssault @ Jun 4th 2009 7:43PM
Sounds pretty sweet. I could really use something like this.
LocalToast @ Jun 4th 2009 7:46PM
This could definitely come in handy, except I'm gonna be broke with all the new games coming up already.
thesimplicity @ Jun 4th 2009 7:52PM
I personally think Pictobits is the best Art Style game yet (this is coming from someone who imported all the bit generations titles) and has fully justified my DSi purchase. Plus the screen is better for my failing geriatric eyes.
Blue_Falcon @ Jun 4th 2009 7:56PM
"...the Six-in-One Translator could end up being the software that justifies the very existence of the DSiWare platform"
Aquia and PiCTOBiTS would like to have a word with you.
Baker1000 @ Jun 4th 2009 7:57PM
Sounds interesting. But I wonder how accurate the translations are. If it's anything like the online translaters you find, I don't expect it to make any sense at all.
jjay278 @ Jun 4th 2009 7:58PM
kiler app!
jcd @ Jun 4th 2009 8:42PM
pretty impressive, but is it too soon to ask for speech recognition?
Man, I really want it
Onomah @ Jun 5th 2009 4:14AM
I think that speech recognition would be too much to ask for. Remember Brain Age? Remember...the colours?
shibotenshi @ Jun 4th 2009 8:51PM
Hooray for Japanese!
Mr Khan @ Jun 4th 2009 9:14PM
Damn. This would be really useful for me, since i speak 3 of those (counting English)
Garst @ Jun 4th 2009 9:54PM
I'll need to see it in action before I make any judgements.
Olicon @ Jun 5th 2009 4:51AM
Japanese manga--here I come! No more waiting for translated version!
InfinityPlusOne @ Jun 5th 2009 10:38AM
There's an app for the iPhone/Touch that my wife and I used on our trip to Japan. This Japanese/English translator not only searched for words, but also allowed you to enable the Chinese Character Recognition on the iPod Touch and then draw the Kanji characters and have it recognize the symbol and translate the word into English. When it worked (some Kanji characters are simply too detailed to enter correctly with your fingertips) it was awesome. I got sick when we were traveling there and had developed a fever. It was difficult enough to explain to this cute old couple who owned a pharmacy in this small town we were visiting that I needed acetaminophen. Fortunately we had the iPod Touch with us and simply searched for it and showed them the results (translated the word was ACHITOMINAPEN... lol). Having that with us, it was simply a life saver. With the DSi being able to simply recognize the characters from a picture, that would be even easier. Hopefully though they will let you draw the kanji yourself as well. And on top of that having French, Italian, German, and Spanish! That sounds just amazing. My wife and I enjoy traveling all over the world so an app like that would be most useful.
I have a DS Lite but I would easily shell out for a DSi and that app in a heartbeat.
WANT