Apps
Let the machine guide you: Touring with your ears
To know the world, just listen to it – these words from writer Amin Maalouf are the motto of Zevisit. The website offers free audio guides to a number of destinations, mostly in France, but also to other places around the world, such as tours to Istanbul or the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. The [...]
Using the globe as a learning tool
Did you know that there are about 30 endagered languages on the westcoast of the US alone? Take Hupa or Hoopa, which nowadays is spoken by less than 10 people, according to the Rosetta Stone Project. It provides several layers for the online-globe Google Earth: Besides an archive of endangered languages you can [...]
When words go fractalicious: An interactive dictionary that branches out
There you go, web magic at its best: Visuwords gives you an interactive dictionary, letting you dynamically examine the connections and relationships betweens words – it’s a blast, and a bit mind-bending, to toy around with. Just have a look at the short video above to get an idea. The flash-based service incorporates WordNet, a [...]
We found new friends abroad
Big things are afoot at the Babbel language platform these days: Besides reaching the 100,000 user mark, Babbel announced today acquiring the British language community FriendsAbroad.com. This makes Babbel one of the largest players in the online language learning market. To incorporate the huge community of language learners from FriendsAbroad.com, Babbel is integrating new features, [...]
The machines are taking over… YouTube incorporates subtitle translations
YouTube just recently added automatic subtitle translations, though like most everything out of the Google universe, it’s still in “beta”. Subtitles and annotations were added as recently as the end of August to the videosharing service. The interpreter robot seems to work pretty well, at least in the example video where I tried Italian to [...]
¡Sube, sube! Or rather, baja!: Zune to become Univisión’s exclusive digital music provider
Zune, microsoft’s candy-colored answer to the ipod and itunes, has recently put their cards on the US Latin music industry by signing a pact with Univisión to become their exclusive online music download provider. Univisión is a New York based Spanish-language TV station broadcasting in the US and Puerto Rico, with one of the more [...]
Sex, drugs and gobbledigook: Sigur Rós and RjDj emote in “musilanguage”
According to evolutionary musicology, “Musilanguage” is a proto-linguistic form of communication somewhere in between, on the one hand, emotive grunting/cooing/moaning/what-have-you, and then on the other, semantically/ symbolically appropriate but sonically arbitrary sounds that convey meaning (i.e. words). As most things are when it comes down to it, this particular concept is about gettin’ busy.
