I Art You

Forbes had a great piece online titled “Grass-Roots Innovation Takes Root“. The article looks at the current trend of do it yourself DIY mentality that is starting to take off. The article looks at projects like MAKE Magazine, open source code projects, and various hacks. Forbes also profiled eight ‘do it yourselfers’ who are changing to world, from building rocket ships with catalog parts to selling standardized genetic parts to make your own drugs, plastics, and petroleum products.
I think its high time North American started bring technology hacks and innovation to everyday life. The success of our economy rests on our ability to innovate and a lot of that comes down to our culture. Japan for example has a culture of innovation, children build robots and play with electronics at a young age, man of them strive to understand how they work and go on to engineer some of the incredible robot culture the country has developed. The more our culture hungers for innovative technology and the more people that are pushing the envelope the better off our society will be.

Although widely available in East Asia, the Talk Man language translator for the Sony PSP is difficult to find in North America. I ordered mine from the Asian game exporter Play Asia. The Talkman comes with a UMD disc full of language games and a USB microphone that plugs into the top of the PSP is provided. The user can speak words or phrases into the microphone and the Talkman will translate from English to Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin. It can also work backwards translating any of those languages to English. Just speak into the microphone and you will be given a list of phrases the game thinks your trying to say.
The whole process is moderated by an animated bird named Max. Luckily the game is not as lame as the bird, or the pathetic yet humorous video on the website. The video shows some Japanese guy picking up these ugly bottom of the barrel English teachers in Japan. As most devices marketed in Japan, classy is not in the Talkman’s vocabulary.
Don’t throw away your electronic dictionary just yet. The Talkman is only a game, and meant to be used to learn a language or navigate a foreign country. It is incredibly useful for asking directions and making some small talk, and although its vocabulary and range is impressive it is still only the equivalent to a small phrase book.
The Talkman is a great toy for anyone learning the languages it uses. It presents the language in a fun way, and is very big on proper pronunciation. I would also recomend it for someone traveling in Korea, China, or Japan with no knowledge of the local language, it can be a big help getting around. However, it takes a long time to get into the translation section from the time you turn on your PSP drasticly slowing its effectiveness as a translator.