Gizmodo: english

Road Sign Translation Snafu Proves Machines Are Less Lazy Than Humans

Jason Chen — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 16:00:00 EDT

What happens when you ask a guy to translate something for you into a language you don't understand? This. The top part of the sign is in English, but when they emailed someone to translate that English into Welsh, the response actually said "I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated." That's right, it's an out of office message, which subsequently made it onto the road sign undetected. We hope those residents are getting used to Welsh truck drivers carrying heavy goods. [BBC - Thanks Christopher!]

Question of the Day: Do You Consider Yourself a Fanboy?

Sean Fallon — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:00:00 EDT

The word fanboy gets thrown around a lot these days—so much so that Webster's decided to officially incorporate the term into the English language. Generally speaking, when referring to someone as a fanboy it is intended to be derogatory—but the bottom line is that Fanboyism is the root of all great nerdy debates. So, it is time to take a hard, honest look at yourself. Are you a fanboy? If so, what kind of fanboy are you? And if this poll turns out skewed heavily towards no, there are a whole lot of liars out there.

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]

Sharp and IBM's Real-Time Language Translator

Charlie White — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 13:23:30 EDT

So is this finally it? Is this the real-time language translator that will make talking with people in a foreign language as easy as it is in science fiction films, where it seems like everyone speaks English? Maybe. Sharp and IBM introduced this hand held device that the companies say can translate Japanese to English and vice versa in real time. It's set to ship at the end of this year for around $508.

This is not the first real-time handheld language translator, in fact there's one called the Talkman that works with the Sony PSP, and the military has been using similar technology since 2003. But this one could be a step in the right direction. We're looking forward to the day when these devices are the size of a hearing aid. – Charlie White

Sharp and IBM to release real-time translator [Sci Fi Tech]