Proposed Design: Mobile Application
Submitted by, Ashna Liza Sunny 201114006 Explorations in Design Anthropology. HM 330 07/05/2012
1
“Kos kos mein badle paani, teen kos mein baani” This is a Hindi proverb I came across which says a lot about India. It means that travelling one Kos (Ancient Indian unit of measuring distance) the water will taste different and if we travel three Kos then the Baani language of people will change. This is a reflection upon how diverse India as a sub-continent is. This diversity is not the result of all the different culture we have embedded in this single largest democracy, but it is rather the cause for their presence in the first place. India is geographically as diverse as the globe itself can be. We have every type of geographical entity which can be found if we travel in any direction from Kashmir to Kanya kumari. This variety is what gives rise to different cultures, different body structures for fellow human beings, different style to dress themselves and also different needs to equip themselves with words to describe what is witnessed in different parts of the country. Thus are born the numerous languages and mother tongues which exist today in India. Many of these languages are oral in nature, which means that they do not have a script to write down and pass the knowledge from one generation to other but rather do this by oral means of storytelling or singing, while day to day communication is also in a face to face oral manner. But this is not the case with all languages. As we know today’s society is dependent upon the written word much more then the oral one. It so happened that some time in the history of human civilisation, society felt the need to record what was being said or what was occurring at that particular time, for later reference. Earliest examples of this practice might have been to keep records of earliest trade systems (Barter system, etc). Thus came the earliest scripts into existence and no matter how much they changed and evolved today they written word is still the medium on which we put our belief and all practical application of record keeping are done in written form. Any kind of information to be given out is presented in a written form. Thus we have seen a decline in the oral traditions that our country had. It would not be wrong to say that we have certainly lost a lot of cultural depth due to this process. But today even what is remaining is at stake. Scripts themselves are not the all powerful weapon in the arsenal of a language and the presence of a script can’t ensure the survival of any language. Just as we saw a decline of oral languages, today we are witnessing the decline of the very language diversity as a whole.
2
This is not separate from the decline of cultural diversity as the two are inter-knitted in a very close relationship which we often tend to ignore. What we are witnessing today is the standardisation of everything from the way we dress, the food we eat, our living style and the way we communicate. It’s like the giant hand of consumerism, capitalism and globalisation is forcing us all to be moulded into the same structure. Those who are not riding with the same velocity are left behind at a merciless rate. But are we really into the one language, one way of living structure yet? I don’t think so. No matter how much this proposed and propagated by the capitalists we are still not there yet. There is some strand of our social fabric which understands the need for diversity and this strand is somehow still keeping it alive. Yes we have become one giant market but still the markings on the walls and words on the posters, hoarding, the directions to move around in our cities, numbers on busses, named of various stops all of this is still in the local flavour. It’s like the cityscape itself wants to preserve its unique colours. Then what are the challenges that are confronted by this denial to be standardised? What is the way in which we can move if we do not accept one language and one writing structure as supreme? Just yesterday I missed the bus to a city in Gujarat as the name of the city was written in Gujarati script which is different from both the Roman (English) and Devanagri (Hindi) scripts that I am familiar with. This is the same situation faced by countless people who move from one place to another and encounter sign boards and info-graphics presented to them in various other languages that are unknown to them. This provides an easy argument to those who want the use of one language everywhere. But as I have tried to point out earlier that is not the kind of solution which is sustainable. Human beings need to communicate what they are experiencing. Their experiences are not same everywhere and thus their mode of communication cannot be same everywhere in the same manner. Thus we need to solve or try to imagine a solution different from the generally found notion of one language. In order to help our various languages to survive we need to make them accessible to all. By this I mean we need to make people understand them in relation to any language that they already know. We have to imagine and create a system where everyone can read everything no matter in what language it is written. By this I am not proposing to educate everybody in every language present on the face of earth. But the proposed system will try to read any given language sample and present it to you in a language you are already familiar with.
3
Here, I would like to propose an idea which will help us to solve this problem to certain extend through a mobile application. Mobile phones are being extensively used by students, doctors, engineers, service man and common man and woman in their day-to-day activities. Today business is next to impossible without a mobile phone. Starting from aviation industry to service sector, the mobile phones are playing an important and vital role. 1
The use of a mobile phone is not limited to speaking alone it is being used in making video,
recording information and transmitting it to a phone or a computer as was being done by a computer. Mobile phone can be connected to a computer to download information from it or vice versa. Other facilities like on line chatting, conferencing, sending text, transferring MMS information by a mobile phone are compatible with a computer. There are a variety of them from the simplest to complex ones. The simple ones like the usual phones serve its prime purposes like voice calls, messaging, etc. But another category, the Smart phones are high specification phones that operate like miniature computers. They can usually do tasks like connect to the internet and receive emails. There are different mobile applications for different uses. There is a great demand for the applications like games, social networking applications, and some which provide information and entertainment. Recent examples of smart phones are the Apple IPhone, Blackberry and Google Android phones.
The Existing Solution in the market 2
The present solution for the problem of inability to access different languages is trying to be
solved by a new technology of an Augmented Reality App, Provides Instant Language Translation named Word Lens. Mobile augmented reality apps are slowly finding their way into the iPhone store. Word Lens is a language translation app that uses the iPhone’s camera to capture written language text (on signs, etc.) and translate it instantly. If Word Lens is to be believed, we now live in the future where you simply point your iPhone camera at something and it translates it for you replacing the Spanish text, for example, with English right before your eyes. 4
It currently only supports 2 demo modes (backwards and erase) and two language packs
(English to Spanish and Spanish to English) available as in-app purchases, currently on 50% 4
off sale for $4.99. They admit it’s not perfect; it can’t handle handwriting or stylized fonts, and gives more gist than precise translation, but again — camera based translation is future. It don’t need any kind of network or internet connection. So, creating no additional expences. This nifty little application is compatible with the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPod Touch.
Even if it’s only a tech demo, even if it only works for comedic effect, if this technology is refined diminishing its limitations and making it more effective. It would be one of the best apps been in market. Creator Otavio Good sees the application as a great travel companion. He says of Word Lens, “The world around us is very visual, particularly when travelling. There are signs, menus, historical plaques, and myriad of stores and venues that can leave travellers confused. Word Lens helps translate the world around you simply by overlaying a word-for-word translation of the things you're seeing and reading.” “Augmented reality has been a neat feature since its introduction. However, Word Lens is a great example of the business opportunities that exist by implementing augmented reality to solve practical problems,” added Good.
The Proposed Solution When we derive this application to a different context, many factors are to be taken into consideration. First of all, we should make sure that the design fit into the Indian context. As 5
I mentioned above the kind of language diversity we have, a similar application like this will be useful and helpful to the people all over India, the target market. But it is not possible to include all the languages. So, it is necessary to prioritize the most commonly used languages. Accordingly it will be possible to decide which languages should be included in this application. 3
Talking more about the languages of India; the languages that are added in the eighth
schedule of the Indian Constitution are referred as the Official Languages. The VIII schedule originally contained 15 languages, i.e. Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. By the 71st Amendment of the Constitution Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali have been added to the schedule in 1992. Let’s select these 18 languages as the most common ones. These are the languages that the application is supposed to translate. Here, the system should perform a word-for-word translation of the text, for that all those basic scripts of each language should be preloaded in the application. Since the number of languages we consider here are higher and those are with entirely different kind of scripts. The system demands, the complete information about each of these languages to be made inbuilt in it; from letters to phrases. Some of the languages like Konkani, Manipuri, etc. don’t have a script of its own so uses the scripts of other languages. So this should also be taken into consideration. For this to be possible, it is necessary to create databases of each of these language dictionaries as well as databases of fonts that are commonly used for them. There is also an issue of the fonts being Unicode and thus the application will have wider acceptance. The major difference to be made in this app from the existing one is that, it should have one additional feature. It should be provided with an Automatic Language Detection System. Since, there are several languages; it will be convenient for the user to use the app more easily, if it detects the source language automatically. For this, an Image Recognition System should be developed, which will identify each and every letter of the source text to match it with the inbuilt language glyphs of all the language. The user will get the list of languages to which the translation is to be done. By selecting the particular language needed, he/she can straight away use the application by holding the phone before the text which should be translated. Hence it should be made possible for the application to superimpose the text to the language selected by the user. 6
Soon after the phone is switched on, the application should start loading in the background which can diminish the wastage of time of the user; the application will be ready to use in immediate needs. From the menus, click on the app icon, as the app window opens, the camera should also be turn on automatically giving the video display on the screen. Immediately the app should start searching for the source text. Locates it. Recognizes the particular language by matching its glyphs with the glyphs of all those inbuilt languages in the application. Within fractions of seconds the app should identify the source text language and should be done with the translation. The default language available should be Hindi. The user should select a particular language from the list of available languages to which the translation is made possible. Image of the source text should be replaced by erasing it and replacing it with the new language text image superimposed in the same scenario. After use the user can close the application, then the default language will be the one he have selected lastly. If the limitations can be diminished this will be one application which will have great use in Indian context. It will help to make the communication better crossing the barriers of diversity.
7
References: 1) http://www.culturopedia.com/Languages/official_languages.html 2) http://www.thevedicfoundation.org/valuable_resources/SanskritThe_Mother_of_All_Languages_partI.htm 3) http://www.kamat.com/indica/diversity/languages.htm 4) http://books.google.co.in/books?id=U2WNfFpT14IC&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=percentage +of+indians+knowing+hindi&source=bl&ots=_bVaZKZufQ&sig=Yqv0V27iA3shuGBbHep gPULNOpA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=9O2jT8mxItCjrQfzy8H8CQ&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAQ#v=one page&q=percentage%20of%20indians%20knowing%20hindi&f=false 5) http://types.org.uk/phones/mobile-phones/types-of-mobile-phones/ 6) http://www.sigmainfotech.com.au/articles/smart-phone-application-development-a-smartmove.html 7) http://www.howstuffworks.com/augmented-reality.htm 8) http://www.vagabondish.com/word-lens-mobile-app-for-instant-language-translation/ 9) http://www.mapsofindia.com/culture/indian-languages.html 10) http://www.imore.com/2010/12/17/word-lens-iphone-instant-translation-camera/ 11) http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/word-lens/id383463868?mt=8# 12) http://creativemac.digitalmedianet.com/article/Word-Lens-Introduces-French-Language-toIts-Augmented-Reality-Based-Translation-Capabilities--1802874
13) http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-use-word-lens-iphone-app-for-real-time-translations415835/
Citation: 1
http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/117133/cell_phones/uses_of_mobile_phone.html
2
http://www.vagabondish.com/word-lens-mobile-app-for-instant-language-translation/
3
http://www.culturopedia.com/Languages/official_languages.html
4
http://www.imore.com/2010/12/17/word-lens-iphone-instant-translation-camera/
8