Posts Tagged ‘application’

When I first saw Shel Israel’s (@shelisrael) tweet and the iTunes store description off of his link, I was skeptical, as was Shel. Visual translations via an iPhone app?

Word Lens is the real thing.

I just conducted a quick test on the iPhone app.

On-screen text message:

iPhone screenshot of the Word Lens translation:

The application has a “Pause” button which takes a still of the translation. In still mode, the translated words become hyperlinks which allows the user to click through to see the translation of the specific word.

How much is this app?

The actual Word Lens application is free and it comes with a Word Reverse and Word Erase tools.

The English-to-Spanish and the Spanish-to-English translation engines are $4.99 each. To access those libraries, you click on the white oval at the top of the screen (it will read “Demo:Reverse Words”) and you are taken to a Languages screen which shows the installed items and the “Available to Download” items.

VIDEO: Word Lens in action – Santa Paula, CA

I photographed the “Smile at the camera” sign at the La Unica bakery then showed the owner how it worked. She was amazed by the translations.

Notes

* I’d rate the translation accuracy around 70-80%.

* The app doesn’t work very well with full pages of text but it will parse through and try to translate what it can.

* The app doesn’t have Spanish regional settings so it won’t know whether to translate “potatoes” to “papas” or to “patatas.” There are hundreds of such words that vary in usage from country to country.

* According to the iTunes listing, the requirements are:
– Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPod touch (4th generation). Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

Is the Word Lens application a game changer in the translation world or is this just another app?

Instant Tweetup is a free iPhone application that allows users to find nearby Twitter users and send them tweets.

How Does Instant Tweetup Work?

Once launched, the application requests permission to use your current location. By providing your location, the application can scan your immediate geographical area and find Twitter users who:

1) Have set their “Location” settings in that area or,
2) Have their “Tweet Location” option on and have “checked in” nearby.

This “Tweet Location” feature is an opt-in feature that was added to Twitter a few months back. You can turn this on by going to Settings > Account > then checking on the “Tweet Location” checkbox. I tweet from home a lot so I have this turned off.

Once you use the application to find nearby tweeps, you can “@” message them an invitation to meetup with you and optionally include a bit.ly map link with your current location. You do not have to be following these Twitter users. The message is a simple “@” reply, not a Direct Message.

Possible Uses

1) Find nearby tweeps to follow. This works best if you already know the people. For example, you can follow nearby friends, schoolmates or workmates that you haven’t connected with on Twitter.

I personally follow a broad range of people on Twitter, but have also tried to find people in my home county to follow. This has worked well for me in terms of business networking. However, following people within a one to ten mile range (the Instant Tweetup range) in my small town is a bit too close for comfort. Imagine following someone and discovering they live on the same block. That could get strange.

2) Use Instant Tweetup to announce product or service offerings if you are a business. You wouldn’t want to blast it out to everyone all the time since some people will show up because they live nearby, not because they are looking to shop. For example, if you are the local sub shop, you could use Instant Tweetup to offer a special to nearby tweeps who are talking about lunch. If they are following your business this is an instant win, but if you haven’t connected with them yet then this could be considered spam.

3) Tweet out a business offer at a major event. If you’re at the Staples Center watching the Lakers wipe the floor with Seattle, for example, a concession stand or volunteer booth could tweet out an offer to those who are obviously at the Center.

4) Use it for an instant tweetup. Yes, if you have a group of friends in a nearby location, you can message them all and set a meeting place. “@MyGoodFriendJoe In line at Pinks in Hollywood, come and join me if you’re hungry! bit.ly/maplocation.”

One thing to keep in mind is that if you are tweeting these messages out with the map locations, you’re providing your location to the world.

Enhancements I’d like to see

1) Provide a way to filter out random people and only show Twitter followers. Depending on the context and the message, tweeting invites and your location at random people in your immediate vicinity can be both spammy and creepy.

I contacted Keith Moon (@keefmoon on Twitter), Instant Tweetup’s developer, and he said that he plans on adding color-coding to the results list to indicate if someone is a follower. That’s a step in the right direction.

2) Provide an opt-out feature. Right now, to “opt-out” of the Instant Tweetup application, a Twitter user would have to turn off their geolocation setting and also remove their Location setting. This would be an important feature request if people started using the application in a non-targeted manner. If a local business started sending out tweets at me every single day at lunch time, I’d eventually want to turn it off.

QUESTIONS

Do you have any other suggestions on how to use the application? Is it something you would use? Leave a comment.

Animoto, the video creation company, has an iPhone application that allows you to create a video out of pictures on your iPhone. The iPhone version requires at least five images and an audio selection from the Animoto library then you are all ready to create the new video.

The iPhone application gives you the option of creating a 30-second or a Full-Length video. The 30-second video is free but does not allow you to include video snippets or post it to YouTube. I didn’t try the Full-Length video so I’m not sure if those features do show up there.

Unfortunately, the video you create on the iPhone does not show up on the regular Animoto.com web site under your account. They have a message saying that developers are hard at work on that.

Besides these minor limitations, the free Animoto iPhone app is easy to use and makes a great dynamic video.

Some great uses:

1) Great for photographers who want another way of presenting their photos

2) Realtors could snap a few pictures, add music, and create a great video for a home listing -ON LOCATION

3) Great for sharing pics from any event. You’ll be able to share something much sooner than by uploading and tagging pictures via Flickr

4) Mix in pictures of a loved one and a message then send it to them for their birthday. A nice surprise!

5) Great quick way to share the happenings at a political rally to keep people engaged.

The following video was created using the iPhone application and pictures I took on my trip to Denver. I used the “share” feature, emailed the resulting link to my email address, ran the video then used the embed code to place it on this post. Enjoy!

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You can now read and post to WordPress.com blogs using Tweetie2, a third-party iPhone Twitter application.

This is cool because it’s like having mobile Twitter but for blogs. You can read and post to your blog and also read other WordPress.com blogs.

This is an overview of how it works, for specific instructions view the WordPress.com blog post on this new feature:

1) Set up a new account in Tweetie2 for your WordPress.com blog. Tweetie2 charges $2.99 for the app. I didn’t have it yet so finally ponied up the cash and it’s rockin so far.

2) Change a setting so that it uses the special link to a Twitter WordPress API. This tells Tweetie2 that you want that Account to do WordPress things, not Twitter things. That means that you will not be able to tweet from that Account, which makes sense since it’s pointing to your blog and not Twitter.

3) Set up your blog using your WordPress.com username and password information. You’ll still be configuring this new Account at this point. Since WordPress.com allows multiple blogs under one account, your default blog will be the one that Tweetie2 can post to. But, you can change that setting by going to your WordPress.com site’s Profile page (see below).

To change the “controlling” WordPress blog that will be updated from the Tweetie2 Account, just select the blog from the “Status updates will be posted on this blog:” drop down menu.

4) Configure geotagging. While you’re in the WordPress.com Profile page, you can also decide if you want to allow geotagging which attaches location information to your blog posts. You must have geotagging turned on for the specific “controlling” WordPress.com blog for this to work. If you want more information on geotagging, I created a video tutorial on how to turn on the geotagging feature on a WordPress.com blog. My tutorial was also picked up by WordPress.tv.

I tested this and posted an update to my geotagging enabled WordPress.com blog. After a while, the post showed up on the Tweetie2 Account but it took a little longer for it to show up with a little red flag next to it. The red flag indicates that if you click on the item you’ll also see a map.

5) Add in your friends! Not only can you read and post to your selected blog, you can also read other WordPress.com blogs. In order for that to happen, these WordPress.com blogs must be added to your “Blog Surfer” list. You can access this area by logging into your WordPress.com blog site then going to My Account > Blog Surfer. If you’ve previously added blogs to this list, they should already show up in your Tweetie2 WordPress Account “stream.” If you want more to show up, just enter the URL in the “WordPress.com url” text box and click on the Add button.

This is a view of the Blog Surfer page:

Once you add your favorite WordPress.com blogs, it takes a few minutes for them to show up in your new Tweetie2 WordPress Account feed. Refresh Tweetie2 if you don’t see them after a few minutes. Items appear in the stream in chronological order so you may have to scroll down to see older posts – yes, just like Twitter.

6) Post away! Now you can post to your blog just as you would compose a tweet for Twitter. You still only have 140 characters, there are no attachments, and no special fields for adding links. You’d have to type or paste in any links you want to include in your post. Once again, if you have geotagging turned on for this blog, that information will show up for that blog post and will show up for any of your friends that subscribe to your blog via the Blog Surfer feature.

You’ve just learned the process for creating a new Tweetie2 Account to give it Twitter-like connectivity to your WordPress.com blog network.

So tell me, will you use it? If so, do you think you’ll post to your WordPress.com blog more?

Animoto allows you to create a professional looking video out of still pictures, in a hurry. From the time I signed up to the time I emailed my wife the completed video took 20 minutes tops. That’s including the initial signup process and playing around time.

The coolest feature of the application is that it allows you to easily integrate music into the video and automagically “shapes” the video based on the beats of the song! The one downside is that their music library is fairly limited but you can upload your own music.

You can also share the video via tweets, Facebooking it, or embedding it into your site/blog.

I made the video below to entertain my wife but thought I’d share so you can get an example of a final product.