Sunday, November 19, 2006
How is it possible to write with a Japanese mobile phone?
In the always interesting blog Kirai.net, for which it is not known is the blog of a Spanish that he went to Japan with a scholarship Vulcanus and has finished working there, is the explanation to all questions that we have become ever : How are the Japanese keyboards? How is it possible to write Japanese on a computer? How to write the Chinese who still have more symbols than in Japan?
In the first part Kirai makes us a complete historical introduction to the problem, and shows us the first solutions developed for the computer. The key is the use of a predictive system of writing, like that can be turned into mobile phones at present, combining the use of a dictionary, the rules of grammar and techniques of learning Bayesian, the same as used for instance Modern anti-spam filters.
Kotoeri example of the system in the operating system MacOSX
In fact it is not that this method is similar to predictive text is upside down: the predictive text used in the West, and other systems such as the spelling checker for text editors today, based on investigations by the Japanese to achieve in his writing language on a computer.
Many Japanese companies are more focused on creating applications from the technology base. Since they were established early spellcheckers not only Japanese but also from English, Microsoft later recruited many Japanese to build a laboratory for language processing. The correction of your Microsoft Word also uses Hidden Markov Models in a manner somewhat different, but in the end is more of the same.
An example of how to pressure from some restrictions on who was being subjected society and Asian languages before the arrival of new technologies were able to be creative and find a solution that not only helped him to Japan and the Japanese but the whole the world. When you type using the method dictionary with your mobile phone you are using Japanese technology whose foundations were settled in the 70s! and Andrei Markov without forgetting that over one hundred years ago developed the mathematical basis.
In the second part of this article, Kirai explains the most difficult yet: Japanese writing on a mobile phone.
[...] Coaching some mathematical widgets called Hidden Markov Models with Japanese dictionaries and using an algorithm called Viterbi was possible to write Japanese quickly with a QWERTY keyboard. That is to say with just 26 letters of the English alphabet can be written Japanese has more than 2,000.
But the purpose of these articles was to discover how the Japanese writing with a mobile phone where we have even fewer keys.
Example of writing in Japanese on a mobile phone
If this system has not been used before is simply because of technological limitations, especially memory:
A predictive system uses the user's input to go changing the Hidden Markov Models and other internal parameters for the next time the user is going to write the system to "guess" what word will be used. On the other hand, the Viterbi algorithm is modified to be showing the "future state" as we write. The problem is that for Viterbi is capable of going to generate the "future state" in real time requires plenty of memory, perhaps this is one of the reasons why in the first mobile was not possible to implement these devices.
What's curious is that in the end, using these techniques, fewer pulses are needed to write that which normally would be required to write a text. And this alarm for some sectors of society.
Similar algorithms are used programming environments such as Visual Studio which has one of the best prediction systems for programmers or Eclipse, also the writing system of prediction has MacOSX Kotoeri although it is quite distressing, our PDAs and mobile devices are beginning to predict with Western languages and so on. The predictive writing systems are the future! Which brings controversy, here and in Japan there is much talk among intellectuals and academics on the decline of the use of language because of the predictive systems of mobile phones and the ease with which young people today can write Kanji with the phone without having to remember.
It's an interesting thought: not having to remember the names of the functions of a particular API when scheduling is a big plus ... but relying on a device to write Japanese can make people forget the rules of this writing, so that the way "traditional" writing could be forgotten. Knowing how to write with a computer but not with a pencil Wondering situation, right?
I recommend reading these two articles, already full of information that are very interesting.
By: Mark Gonzalez Troyes in New Palm, Windows Mobile News
| RSS comments | Trackback | 
Print this post
Related Articles
Subscribe to stay abreast of developments in this blog
Hi, I'm a good novell java programmer, and I am learning with eclipse, and the prediction seems to me a text last accustomed to turbo c, you have to know everything from memory, here is a lot easier, at least for me , A class apart and put it turns out all possible cobinaciones!, Some of which tabulates the text and you just put brackets parenthesis keys and what he does lack the solito!
Aupa prediction, ejeje, congratulations on your blog!
Although forget how to write the kanji, they can always see their phone as quickly, so no problem jeje
This I tienene reminded that the T9 Mobile, which was a boom, but now that I know of nobody uses it, because you have to write all the letters and you do not enter anything on the Web!
Well, I must be very Raritan q How I love the T9 you put up the accents in words
Excellent post ... I think this also goes to the other side ... the problem of non-standardization of browsers that do we also lose the accentuation of the words ... But in my case is something voluntary, but in the young is something almost automatic ...
It was some of that open Word to see how to spell a word because we do not automatically remember ... but all this also goes by the drop in the minced habit of reading books ... like not going to be beautiful and imaginative reading an adventure? Or a book of science fiction or suspense?
I have never used T9, as my Nokia cell phones have always been, and I understand that the Motorola mainly used this system of predictive text, so that only the use of textonyms, but is excellent as you add the accents on its own. Greetings.
Hello, the Nokia, if carried t9, but I think they call it, use the dictionary, if I remember correctly.
a greeting
OWNEE ... I think that if they use the Nokia T9 just that I had no idea ... the Motorola uses a version of T9 that also has called iTAP predictive completion of the word ...
Yes, I have a Motorola and iTAP works as saying. With less common words is not going so well, but it usually works pretty well.
In my case it is good T9 especially if you have a rush to write as soon mensaje_________aunke there escepcines predictive atextos as in the case of Samsung and Nokia.
I discover this is what the program POBox in the palm.