Pleco as a Google Glass Killer App

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cjgait

举人
There is little doubt that with Glass, Google is ovvertaking Apple in the wow factor product development line. But Pleco on Google Glass could give the product a whole new dimension. Imagine being able to tell a tourist in China that they don't need a phrasebook, they can simply look at signs and be able to read them. Instead of OCR, just pick up a Chinese book and start reading (as long as you already read Chinese. As everyone on this forum knows, it's not as simple as just reading the characters and understanding what is going on in a Chinese sentence.).

Overall, Mike, I think it's well worth your money to invest in a prototype early and come up with a Google Glass Pleco app.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
cjgait said:
There is little doubt that with Glass, Google is ovvertaking Apple in the wow factor product development line. But Pleco on Google Glass could give the product a whole new dimension. Imagine being able to tell a tourist in China that they don't need a phrasebook, they can simply look at signs and be able to read them. Instead of OCR, just pick up a Chinese book and start reading (as long as you already read Chinese. As everyone on this forum knows, it's not as simple as just reading the characters and understanding what is going on in a Chinese sentence.).

Overall, Mike, I think it's well worth your money to invest in a prototype early and come up with a Google Glass Pleco app.
Click to expand...

Honestly, this is useful enough that I think Google will be offering a free version of it themselves (via Google Translate) very soon - I agree it's a great idea, but I don't think it's one that a little company like Pleco will be allowed to make any money off of.
 
K

Kanidedas

Member
I understand that not anyone can make a deal with Google. However, as far as I know from Google Translate, The version for
Glass will be just a mere translation application to muddle through, not really made for language learners. Pleco Glass version would be
something more sophisticated that address Chinese language students (not only characters recognition but also save words, review flashcards while walking etc). I don´t think they would really compete one with each other (actually the Pleco one would be like an extension from the basic one). Although Pleco it is a small company it has by far the best app for learning Chinese in the market with thousands of users
that would loved to buy this device just to speed that their learning pace so I think they could be interested (Maybe it is still bit early for this though).
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Actually the flashcard aspect of this interests me considerably more, since we're already thinking about hands-free on-the-go flashcard study via audio; play questions and answers over headphones and accept simple voice commands to indicate whether something was correct or incorrect. So supporting Google Glass or the iWatch or what have you is a very logical extension of that.

But for OCR, with the screen area of a Google Glass I just think the Google Translate approach will end up working better for most people - it's not really feasible to pull up a bunch of dictionary definitions on a little HUD, the most useful way to use Google Glass with OCR is to look at something and have it say or overlay the entire translation.
 
K

Kanidedas

Member
That would be just fantastic, a new dimension for Pleco...
As for the Google Glass OCR approach , it is good, but I would still miss the possibility to save any word that come on my way with OCR automatically without turning to my mobile phone.
 
S

siamesefightingfish

举人
I don't see google glass sales taking off, maybe I'm missing something. But wouldn't that require people actually wearing those silly looking things on their heads? o_O
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
siamesefightingfish said:
I don't see google glass sales taking off, maybe I'm missing something. But wouldn't that require people actually wearing those silly looking things on their heads? o_O
Click to expand...

No idea if that or even if wearable computing in general will catch on, but we're certainly paying attention in case it does.
 
K

Kanidedas

Member
siamesefightingfish said:
I don't see google glass sales taking off, maybe I'm missing something. But wouldn't that require people actually wearing those silly looking things on their heads? o_O
Click to expand...
I think it will probably only be really sucessful from 2nd or 3rd generation. I still can remember how stupid seemed to me the first people I saw on the street using a mobile phone...​
 
K

kun4

举人
According to this teardown, Google Glass has a TI OMAP4430 ARM processor, 16GB of SanDisk flash, 1 GByte of RAM , bluetooth, and a 640x360 display. The camera takes 557x411 pixel pictures.
That's huge compared to Pleco on Palm OS, but for some reason I can't imagine Mike enthusiastically porting Pleco to yet another hardware platform :)
Perhaps an Android smartphone running Pleco in OCR mode, with Google Glass being used as camera and display?
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Honestly I just don't see Glass-based OCR being as useful for language learners as something you can control with your fingers - for travelers translating road signs or whatever, sure, but Google Translate does that too and is free.

Traveler language translation might be a huge market, but it's not one we can realistically compete in long-term; helping people learning Chinese look up words they don't know is the OCR function that we ought to keep focusing on.
 
denmitch

denmitch

探花
Cloud based too, anyone see issues with that? Translate "you don't have wi-fi?" Oh and how about "what's that ad doing on my glasses?"
 
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