Gizmodo: dictionary

Google's in the Business of Defining Words Now With Google Dictionary

matt buchanan — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:50:42 EST

This was kind of inevitable. Google Dictionary, I mean. It's a straight-up dictionary, yeah, but it has a few pretty Google-y features, like the ability to star words, if you're real forgetful, and you can search for words in multiple languages. It's also a fairly stripped interface, unlike a lot of dictionary sites, which is what I find most appealing.

Though I'll probably keep doing what I usually do, and just plug words into my browser's search bar when I wanna know what it means—why bother going to a separate dictionary site? [Google via LA Times]

"Unfriend" Declared Word of the Year

Brian Lam — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:36:29 EST

The New Oxford American Dictionary declared "Unfriend" the word of the year. It beat out hashtag, netbook and sexting, among other nominated words. Oxford defines the verb as: "To remove someone as a 'friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook." I think they should include offline usage, too, like when you stop calling people back entirely or leave people at rest stops on road trips. What, you guys don't do that? [CNN]

Thank You, iPhone Dictionary, That Is Exactly What I Meant to Say

Dan Nosowitz — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 17:00:00 EDT

The iPhone dictionary famously doesn't take kindly to cussing, but here's a notable exception. This autocorrection takes an insult from the anatomical to the excellently profane, helpfully providing an even more vulgar word in case you need it. [Twitter]

$199 Sign Language Translator...OK, Video Dictionary

Mark Wilson — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:50:00 EST

The Sign Language Translator's name may be a tad misleading (it doesn't actually translate anything), but as a pocket ASL video dictionary, it's a neat enough idea.

Featuring a 3,500 word dictionary (more words will be downloadable, we're promised), this seemingly retrofitted PMP is navigated via stylus. You type in the word that you'd like to sign and a video pops up of a guy signing it. Easy enough.

The Sign Language Translator runs for 6 hours before needing a recharge via USB. Slated for a mid-May, the device will be priced at $199. Adam Frucci was quick to point out that an iPhone app could undercut its marketshare pretty quickly. I'd love to see such a world, Adam. I really would.

(On an unrelated note, I looked up the world "cuddle" and it wasn't in the dictionary. Maybe that's why the translator guy looks so sad.)

Fanboy Is Now a Real English Word, Says Merriam-Webster

Jesus Diaz — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 08:12:00 EDT

Yes, it's official: you now can be a fanboy by the power of Grayskull and the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, which says the word is now part of the English language. They arrive a little late, because the Oxford American Dictionary in Apple's Mac OS X Leopard running on my Apple iMac 24" shows it, and so does the dictionary on my Apple PowerBook 17"—running Apple's Mac OS X Tiger—and also the automatic orthography corrector in my Apple iPhone. The Merriam-Webster added other geek terms which are not in the Oxford, though:

Netroots: the grassroots political activists who communicate via the internet especially by blogs

Webinar; a live online educational presentation during which participating viewers can submit questions and comments.

Pretexting: the practice of presenting oneself as someone else in order to obtain private information

Another word they added was malware—software designed to interfere with a computer's normal functioning—but that's in the Oxford too. [CNET]

Save the Trees With Webster's USB New World Dictionary

Haroon Malik — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 12:30:00 EDT

To hell with paper—save the trees! Sony has already got us thinking along the right path, and now Centon Electronics is releasing Webster's New World College dictionary, with 160,000 entries, on a USB flash drive. The perk here is the dictionary will be available on either a 2GB or 4GB flash drive at $42.99 and $64.99, respectively. As only 140MB is used to store all those sexy words, the extra space is yours to use and abuse. The asking prices may be a tad steep, but that's the price you pay to look cool and have a dictionary on your USB stick. Save the trees, man. [Product Page via Oh Gizmo via Uberreview]

The word (acronym) DVR actually made it into...

Jason Chen — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 16:40:13 EDT

The word (acronym) DVR actually made it into the dictionary. It's only Merriam-Webster though, the USA Today of dictionaries. [Merriam-Webster]

iRiver M10 and D5 Players Bring Glossy Black Back in Fashion

Jason Chen — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 14:30:31 EDT

Set to be revealed at SEK in Korea, the iRiver M10 and D5 both have a glossy black look found in other players like the iRiver Clix 2 (but not in the MPlayer). The M10 will be a navigation-centric device, with a gigantic knob on the right and a DMB tuner, which probably means it's going to stay put in Korean waters for now.

The iRiver D5, on the other hand, is a Nintendo DS-Lite-like flip device that works as an electronic dictionary as well as a music player. Somehow we don't see electronic dictionaries taking off as music players over here in the US like they did in Korea, so we'll have to chalk both these up to Korean envy. – Jason Chen

iRiverfans [via Dapreview]

Sharp's Korean Super Dictionary Doubles as PMP

Mark Wilson — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 19:55:40 EDT

Sharp's new RD-CX300 may actually be a pocket dictionary worth buying. While Webster has dominated the market for years, filling our heads with useless, 5+ syllable words, Sharp has finally found the dictionary's long latent potential: a video player.

This "multimedia super dictionary" stores 20GB of useless words, MP3s, MPEG4s and WMVs. Plus, it packs full QWERTY, an SD slot and voice recording. The 4.3" TFT 260K-color display is just enough power to support the black and white nature of print, especially if you are using the built-in ebook functionality.

Our photo is of a predecessor that should be similar to the new $500, 1.2" thick model when it's released this month in Korea. A tiny picture on Sharp's site shows the RD-CX300 could come in red. Oooohhh. – Mark Wilson

Product Page [via gizmowatch]

Books are Overrated—Electronic Scrabble Dictionary

Travis Hudson — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 12:41:22 EST

Who wants to get their fingers all paper-y flipping through a real dictionary when you can just type in atrociously wrong word to this little doodad. This officially licensed Scrabble electronic dictionary can ensure that there are no cheating bastards trying to take you in Scrabble. This device is also capable of building words, but using word building programs is pretty weaksauce, in my opinion. $40. – Travis Hudson

Scrabble Electronic Dictionary [uncrate]

Apple OS X's Built in Dictionary

blongo — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 16:30:39 EDT

Hey you guys might know this already, but Brian had no clue, so I'm passing it along. Press and hold Apple+Control+D over any word in a cocoa application (Safari, iChat, Mail etc...) and up pops a handy dandy Dictionary/Thesaurus.

You can even move your mouse over any other word on the page and it will keep throwing out definitions. Then just let go of the keys, and POOF no more dictionary.[You're fired. Get me some coffee, intern-BL]

–Ben Longo

Maybe Useful 15 Years Ago: Franklin USB Dictionary and Thesaurus

Charlie White — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 12:55:23 EDT

The Franklin USB Dictionary and Thesaurus is a 256MB thumb drive with Merriam-Webster's Dictionary and the Franklin Thesaurus on board. So, if you ever find yourself without an online connection, out of range of a WiFi connection, or without any spellchecking or thesaurus capabilities on your word processor, it might be nice to have a dictionary on a USB key. But then, since when were you writing something and didn't have a word processor with spellcheck?

Anyway, the people at Franklin must have thought of that, too, because they included an e-book store and a newsstand feature on the USB drive, a scheme which helps you look up books or magazines and then buy them online. Hey, wait, can't you do that with Amazon? So, if you do end up with one of these USB dictionary and thesauruses, good luck finding a capability within it that's not already duplicated online. If you live alone in a cabin in the woods and have a computer with USB, you might be able to use it. It's $49.95. – Charlie White

Franklin's Digital Dictionary/Thesaurus [Gear Log]

Eintech LM-500Series Personal Translator And PMP

Jason Chen — Tue, 30 May 2006 08:30:46 EDT

"Not man enough to grow a mustache, Zack?" Learn that English phrase and many more with the Eintech LM-500Series personal language tutor and PMP.

Not only does this translator/dictionary provide hours and hours of dialogue lessons, conversational english quizzes, and animation dialogue, there's also the brains of a PMP bolted in. With a 640x480 screen, DivX, XviD, and mpeg4 support, you can be watching "Joanie Loves Chachi" instead of actually doing your studies. You can even listen to MP3s and WMAs while reading the lyrics, which we suppose would teach you some English as well.

Rounding out the package is voice recording, e-book format support, photo album, simple video game support, calculator, stereo speakers, and a qwerty keyboard.

Available in Korea. – Jason Chen

LM500SERIES [Eintech via Digital Lifestyle Magazine]

Merriam Webster Dictionary for the iPod

johnb — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 11:06:49 EDT

Merriam Webster, along with iPREPpress, has released a pocket dictionary for the iPod which provides you definations of over 40,000 words. Using the iPod's scroll wheel users can search for words through a hierarchical menu and hyper-linked structure. Imagine! You can listen to your favorite tunes while discovering new words. Expect a wide range of portable reference books from Merriam Webster including Pocket Thesaurus, Rhyming Dictionary for song and hip-hop writers, Pocket Atlas and Dictionary of Quotations soon. The dictionary is available for an introductory price of $9.95.

Product Page [iPrePress]

Take That, Tower Of Babel!

Gizloco — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 10:35:56 EST

Casio s XD-ST6200 hopes to make international travel a little easier to understand. This electronic dictionary includes text-to-speech capabilities for six languages: English, Spanish, German, Italian, French, and Chinese. True-voice technology lets users listen to entries from the Genius English-Japanese dictionary as spoken by a native speaker. Other built-in dictionaries include the Nikkei personal computer dictionary and the Katakana-Indexed Spelling dictionary. The XD-ST6200 sports a 480x320 backlit black-and-white LCD and it's powered by two AAA batteries. An SD card slot and 20MB of built-in memory round out the package. This little problem solver is due out February 17 (in Japan) with a price of 47,250 ($409).

Casio's tri-color hexa-lingual talking dictionary [TechJapan]

Sharp PW-N8000 Color Dictionary

Travis Hudson — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 16:50:32 EST

At first thought, a color dictionary seems about as useful as a deer carcass to a vegan chef. In my usual fashion, after further investigation this device proved to be a bit more useful than I initially thought. This device features the Encyclopaedia Britannica with pictures that are viewed on a 4.3" 480x272 screen. There is also an SD card that stores a query history, as well as optional dictionaries. No price yet, but expect to pay at least a couple hundred for this, and at that point it may be a better option to just get a PDA with dictionary software.

Sharp's new Papyrus Electronic Dictionary PW-N8000 Goes Color [I4U]