01-09-2012, 10:09 AM | #1 |
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Bookeen looking for Dictionary Beta testers
In their new blog, Bookeen expresses their need for Beta Testers
So if you want an English dictionaryfor your Odyssey, it seems a good direction... |
01-09-2012, 10:35 AM | #2 |
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thanks for providing the link - i just signed up after seeing eowyns post in other thread. too bad there is no german option yet - that is my native language. but then again i now exclusively read in english.
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01-09-2012, 11:18 AM | #3 |
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I asked for german too. The one language i would know enough to read but not enough so as to need a dictionary.
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01-09-2012, 01:10 PM | #4 |
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Great. I applied for participation too. There should be a dictionary for most European languages, but somehow I feel that it won't happen.
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01-09-2012, 04:13 PM | #5 | |
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and who knows - maybe after the beta-test there will be more languages available. i cannot imagine a dictionary needs beta testing - but the implementation into the odyssey might need tested - on how to choose a dictionary to automatically select one for the book you are reading, show more than one dictionary at the same time. now that would be nice to have for multilingual readers like me - show the english-english descripition up top, and a quick translation english->german in the bottom. you set your primary language in the settings and done. or choose to have description OR translation (for me again always to german if available). and what about an english book - and someone inside says some words in french. now i would be dumbfounded, and that would be for sure a word i would like to look up - but not in the english dictionary, but in the french->english one. but only once, for this word ... |
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01-09-2012, 06:48 PM | #6 |
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They will select the (monolingual) dictionary using the language tag in the EPUB metadata.
It is not clear how they will let you choose a bilingual dictionary, probably by providing you with a new menu (with a firmware update). What you suggest (ad hoc dictionary selection, based on the word --- e.g. a French word inside an English book) seems too complicated for this device. What about a word that might appear in dozens of dictionaries, like "pizza"? You should load all those dictionaries' indexes into memory to look for the word, there is simply not enough RAM for that. The beta testing will probably assess the linguistic engine (how do you associate "applied" to verb "apply" ? or plurals to singulars, etc.) and the quality of the dictionary. They probably will use some freeware dictionary, like dumps from wikipedia. The French dictionary which is already included in these devices comes from a freeware Stardict created from a late-1800 French dictionary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diction...çaise_(Littré) Last edited by AlPe; 01-09-2012 at 06:53 PM. Reason: Fixing typos |
01-15-2012, 03:55 AM | #7 |
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Big news on dictionaries (including an English one) coming next days... stay tuned guys
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01-15-2012, 04:36 AM | #8 |
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I'm surprised they aren't providing a German dictionary, given that Bookeen primarily target the European market, and German is, I believe, the most widely-spoken language in Europe.
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01-15-2012, 05:17 AM | #9 |
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As they are targeting European countries they have a plethora of languages to support. I think they are faced with the necessity to choose few of the biggest languages. It is a small wonder that there is no English dictionary as it would be of great help for European readers (many Europeans speak English as their second or third language) and it would be of help for markets outside of Europe too. I
I do not know if there are free dictionaries in abundance, if not, licensing costs might be reflected on the price of the reader. Last edited by Lupin; 01-15-2012 at 05:18 AM. Reason: Added closing parenthesis |
01-15-2012, 11:01 AM | #10 | ||
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Quote:
Check out how fast the french dictionary show up with a result. Unless the Odyssey cheats and already starts looking up a word while it still waits and sees if you press the word long enough ... |
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01-15-2012, 02:22 PM | #11 | |
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Moreover a modern language dictionary index (600K words) has ~10 MB size with a standard record format like word (1 byte/char) + separator (1 byte) + offset (4 bytes) + size (4 bytes), where offset and size refer to the actual dictionary file. Perhaps having 5 dictionaries simultaneously loaded in RAM is doable, but certainly not many more. Last edited by AlPe; 01-15-2012 at 02:26 PM. |
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01-17-2012, 07:04 PM | #12 |
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Has anyone received their beta dictionarys?
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01-18-2012, 02:45 AM | #13 |
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Haven't heard nothing from Bookeen yet.
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01-20-2012, 06:16 PM | #14 |
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01-20-2012, 06:56 PM | #15 | |
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