NEC develops Japanese-English translation software for cell phones

Be prepared to enter into a monolog with NEC's Japanese-to-English translation software for cell phones. Why? Because it's capable of translating only verbal Japanese to English text, and not the other way round. What this basically means is if you are a Japanese tourist in an English-speaking country, chances are you won't be able to understand the answer to your question even if a local managed to decipher what you are asking from your phone's screen. Sounds silly to us, but we have to give credit to NEC for solving half the equation of chicken-and-duck talk. Now we just need the company to "realize a society in which anybody can communicate with anyone else anywhere anytime", says NEC spokesman Mitsumasa Fukumoto.

Via Yahoo News
Pictured is the NEC Simpure N1

A flash drive for the devout

When we think of dual-use flash drives, stuff like Swiss Memory USB (flash memory with a Swiss Army knife) and USB lighter (store and burn, baby) come to mind. But who would have guess that one can now have a USB storage device which doubles as a prayer tool?

From a tip-off by one of our ex-journalist friends, the Maria USB Stick is one of those controversial products which would either be:

A) The must-buy gift for your Catholic friends
Or
B) A present to be set alight using the aforementioned USB lighter.

It is the brainchild of Luis Eslava who designed this piece but is obviously not in tune with the tech world. After all who would in their right mind, pay 69 euros for a miserable 512MB USB storage? We couldn't find out if this product ships outside Europe, but at this price, does anyone really care?

Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 endorses Redmond photo format

Early this year, Microsoft has been pushing for its Windows Media Photo file format into the liberal realm of open formats.

Corel's endorsement, via the integrated support for Microsoft's photo format, is a feather in the cap for the Redmond firm's bid to turn its photo format into an industry standard.

Because unlike the other Microsoft-centric standard, Office 2007's OOXML, which is currently slugging it out with another open document standard, ODF, the Windows Media Photo format seems to be enjoying its ride to mass adoption.

Renamed as "HD Photo" in November 2006 to sound less like a Microsoft product, HD Photo (.hdp) already enjoys support from photo-editing software powerhouse Adobe Systems whose wares include Photoshop, as well as the doyenne of high-end cameras, Hasselblad.

With the current support from photo-editing software and the slated mid-2008 adoption of HD Photo (which will be renamed JPEG XR) as an official JPEG standard by the Joint Photographic Experts Group, HD Photo seems to have gained a firm seat in a photographer's end-to-end color management ecosystem.

This development will obviously open up camera manufacturers to the possibility of including HD Photo as a native format in digicams.

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