4 ms·

Fun feature. Would be killer with support for non-latin based language. Imagine walking down a street in Japan, seeing a restaurant, and wanting to search for r

Fun feature. Would be killer with support for non-latin based language. Imagine walking down a street in Japan, seeing a restaurant, and wanting to search for reviews. Oh no! It's written in kanji and you have a hard enough time reading basic words, much less names. Open up Google on your phone, write the kanji and add the japanese word for review behind it, and off you go. Great potential, anyway.

positr0n 14y ago
The video shows a Japanese woman doing just that :)
Permit 14y ago
Judging from the commercial it does. Although I won't embarrass myself by guessing the language. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyeJXKfAcpc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyeJXKfAcpc
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- ericdykstra 14y ago
  Just tested myself. You need to change the browser default language to make it work, but it does a very good job!
- wheels 14y ago
  That was Japanese (Hiragana, one of the glyph forms that Japanese uses).
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    The search was actually in kanji, not hiragana. And the first result (a Wikipedia page), had sakura in katakana. Sakura in kanji: 桜 Sakura in hiragana: さくら Sakura in katakana: サクラ
- T-R 14y ago
  It was Japanese - it was the Kanji for sakura (桜) - hence the cherry trees in the background.
minwcnt5 14y ago
Having to handwrite the Kanji seems like an extra step though - it'd be easier to simply take a photo.
- ken 14y ago
  It's not easier if you're standing in a forest of 桜 and there's no paper and pencil around, as in the demonstration video. :-) And even if you do have it written, it may be easier for the user, but it's harder for the computer. The order and direction of strokes is standardized, and getting this information as the user writes it is tremendously valuable. I've played with handwriting recognition algorithms for kanji before, and if you assume the stroke order and direction are correct, you can make a surprisingly good algorithm with very little code. Detecting a character from an image is much harder. The iOS handwriting recognition, for one, takes this into account. iOS officially only has hanzi (Chinese) handwriting recognition, but it usually works OK for Japanese, too, as long as it's a character that both languages have. But when you run into one of the characters where Chinese and Japanese have standardized on a different stroke order, like 王, it'll never recognize it when written using the Japanese stroke order, no matter how nicely you write it.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
w1ntermute 14y ago
You can already do this on Android in any text field of your choice using the "7notes with mazec" keyboard[0]. The kanji recognition is nothing short of miraculous[1]. It's a little expensive, so check out the free 10-day trial[2] if you need any further convincing. 0: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sevenknowledge.sevennotesproduct&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sevenknowl... 1: http://i.imgur.com/rfHTu.png http://i.imgur.com/rfHTu.png 2: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sevenknowledge.sevennotestrial&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sevenknowl...
- ericdykstra 14y ago
  Thank you for the recommendation. I haven't checked this solution out yet, but it looks fantastic! I have never seen an app with this kind of kanji recognition.
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    It is indeed one of a kind. I haven't formally studied 書道 (calligraphy), but the ad hoc 行書 (cursive style of writing) I've developed out of laziness is recognized perfectly by it. If you're interested in good Android apps for Japanese, I would also urge you to check out Aedict[0] and DroidWing[1]. The latter, when combined with EPWING-format dictionaries obtained from a 3rd party source, is (IMO) just as good as any 電子辞書 (which themselves use EPWING-format dictionaries). I personally use the 研究社新和英大辞典第5版 and 研究社新英和大辞典第6版 (they are, surprisingly enough, more than sufficient for classical Japanese and for kanbun), though you can also get J-J dictionaries and domain-specific ones, such as for IT or medicine. 0: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sk.baka.aedict&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sk.baka.aedict... 1: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aokabi.android.droidwingfree https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aokabi.and...
    - ericdykstra 14y ago
      Wow, thanks again. I'll be in Japan in a couple of weeks, and these will surely be helpful, seeing as my vocabulary is trash.
californian 14y ago
The Google Translate app for Android does this. I was recently in Japan, and that app was invaluable. It's also pretty decent at Japanese speech to English translation.
a3_nm 14y ago
For this use case, I'd rather take a picture of the restaurant name rather than handwriting the kanji.
6ren 14y ago
Using the camera would remove a step - have you seen word lens? http://questvisual.com/us/ http://questvisual.com/us/ (though it doesn't seem to support kanji).

positr0n 14y ago

The video shows a Japanese woman doing just that :)

Permit 14y ago

Judging from the commercial it does. Although I won't embarrass myself by guessing the language. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyeJXKfAcpc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyeJXKfAcpc

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
ericdykstra 14y ago
Just tested myself. You need to change the browser default language to make it work, but it does a very good job!
wheels 14y ago
That was Japanese (Hiragana, one of the glyph forms that Japanese uses).
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  The search was actually in kanji, not hiragana. And the first result (a Wikipedia page), had sakura in katakana. Sakura in kanji: 桜 Sakura in hiragana: さくら Sakura in katakana: サクラ
T-R 14y ago
It was Japanese - it was the Kanji for sakura (桜) - hence the cherry trees in the background.

minwcnt5 14y ago

Having to handwrite the Kanji seems like an extra step though - it'd be easier to simply take a photo.

ken 14y ago
It's not easier if you're standing in a forest of 桜 and there's no paper and pencil around, as in the demonstration video. :-) And even if you do have it written, it may be easier for the user, but it's harder for the computer. The order and direction of strokes is standardized, and getting this information as the user writes it is tremendously valuable. I've played with handwriting recognition algorithms for kanji before, and if you assume the stroke order and direction are correct, you can make a surprisingly good algorithm with very little code. Detecting a character from an image is much harder. The iOS handwriting recognition, for one, takes this into account. iOS officially only has hanzi (Chinese) handwriting recognition, but it usually works OK for Japanese, too, as long as it's a character that both languages have. But when you run into one of the characters where Chinese and Japanese have standardized on a different stroke order, like 王, it'll never recognize it when written using the Japanese stroke order, no matter how nicely you write it.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

w1ntermute 14y ago

You can already do this on Android in any text field of your choice using the "7notes with mazec" keyboard[0]. The kanji recognition is nothing short of miraculous[1]. It's a little expensive, so check out the free 10-day trial[2] if you need any further convincing. 0: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sevenknowledge.sevennotesproduct&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sevenknowl... 1: http://i.imgur.com/rfHTu.png http://i.imgur.com/rfHTu.png 2: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sevenknowledge.sevennotestrial&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sevenknowl...

ericdykstra 14y ago
Thank you for the recommendation. I haven't checked this solution out yet, but it looks fantastic! I have never seen an app with this kind of kanji recognition.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  It is indeed one of a kind. I haven't formally studied 書道 (calligraphy), but the ad hoc 行書 (cursive style of writing) I've developed out of laziness is recognized perfectly by it. If you're interested in good Android apps for Japanese, I would also urge you to check out Aedict[0] and DroidWing[1]. The latter, when combined with EPWING-format dictionaries obtained from a 3rd party source, is (IMO) just as good as any 電子辞書 (which themselves use EPWING-format dictionaries). I personally use the 研究社新和英大辞典第5版 and 研究社新英和大辞典第6版 (they are, surprisingly enough, more than sufficient for classical Japanese and for kanbun), though you can also get J-J dictionaries and domain-specific ones, such as for IT or medicine. 0: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sk.baka.aedict&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sk.baka.aedict... 1: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aokabi.android.droidwingfree https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aokabi.and...
  - ericdykstra 14y ago
    Wow, thanks again. I'll be in Japan in a couple of weeks, and these will surely be helpful, seeing as my vocabulary is trash.

californian 14y ago

The Google Translate app for Android does this. I was recently in Japan, and that app was invaluable. It's also pretty decent at Japanese speech to English translation.

a3_nm 14y ago

For this use case, I'd rather take a picture of the restaurant name rather than handwriting the kanji.

6ren 14y ago

Using the camera would remove a step - have you seen word lens? http://questvisual.com/us/ http://questvisual.com/us/ (though it doesn't seem to support kanji).