Entering text is a pain in the arse, so how about this ...

[Turboellis]

Just a quickie ... sorry if it's been mentioned before

As you already know, I live in Japan so I use various translation tools to make my life easier ...

One of these tools is Google Translate ... and a recent addition to its functionality is to take a photo of Japanese text, recognize the text and translate it into English ... that is genius enough but! it can also do all the boring track lists of records you have that are not on discogs ...

My settings are always Japanese -> English and even if the text is English, Google Translate will just recognize all the letters and give you a pretty good text version of them ...

We aven't got flying cars yet but we're close ...

Here's some text snapped direct from an album I bought last night, no corrections on my part:
A COMBINATION OF RHYTHM & BLUES SOUL MUSIC, TOGETHER WITH THE EXCITING SOUND OF LATIN TEMPO, AS CREATED BY PETE RODRIGUEZ AND HIS CONJUNTO, HAVE CAUSED QUITE A STIR AMONG ALL THE LISTENING AND DANCING AUDIENCES EVERY WHERE FINGERS ARE SNAPPING AND HEADS ARE BOBBING IN RHYTHM TO THIS DIFFERENT AND STIMULATING NEW BEAT THUS THE LATEST SOUND AND DANCING CRAZE HAS BEEN BORN. 'THE LATIN BOOGALOO', PETE RODRIGUEZ HAS BEEN A SUCCESSFUL MUSICIAN AND ORCHES. TRA LEADER FOR MANY YEARS AND THEREFORE HAS DEVELOPED A KEEN FEELING FOR THE CURRENT TRENDS WHICH HAS HELPED MAKE THE PETE RODRIGUEZ CONJUNTO ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL BANDS IN NEW YORK CITY THE RESPONSE TO THE LATIN BOOGALOO HAS BEEN SO OVER WHELMING THAT PETE RODRIGUEZ COLLABORATED WITH HIS COM POSERS, TONY PABON, AND MANNY RODRIGUEZ, WHO ARE MEM BERS COF THE CONJUNTO, AND CREATED A CHOICE OF TUNES THAT REFLECT THE DRIVE AND SPIRIT OF THIS CONJUNTO THE STYLE IN WHICH THIS ALBUM IS COMPOSED MARKS A NEW ez- ACHIEVEMENT IN THE FIELD OF LATIN AMERICAN MUSIC IS EVERYBODY READY. . LATIN BOOGALOO IS HERE!

don't that beat tapping on the keyboard when you're half seas over?

[eclipsechaser]

Being a geek I must say that's awesome

[llmod1]

This does sound brilliant.

Could you please give me an idiots guide as to how to do this.

Thanks

[Sie-Fly]

Amazing

[george]

Three, maybe even four cheers.

G

[peretti]

Ilmod, just download the Google Translate app, you'll get it. I don't think I've ever winkled as readable translation as the Japanese one out of it. My Cuban records read like they've been translated by the Great Soprendo after a stroke.

[SirSlim]

My Cuban records read like they've been translated by the Great Soprendo after a stroke.

[pitch]

It's useful for menus too! You see the foreign descriptions suddenly transform into English on your phone's screen through the app - it's freaky!!

[babycart]

Just a quickie ... sorry if it's been mentioned before

As you already know, I live in Japan so I use various translation tools to make my life easier ...

One of these tools is Google Translate ... and a recent addition to its functionality is to take a photo of Japanese text, recognize the text and translate it into English ... that is genius enough but! it can also do all the boring track lists of records you have that are not on discogs ...

My settings are always Japanese -> English and even if the text is English, Google Translate will just recognize all the letters and give you a pretty good text version of them ...

We aven't got flying cars yet but we're close ...

Here's some text snapped direct from an album I bought last night, no corrections on my part:
A COMBINATION OF RHYTHM & BLUES SOUL MUSIC, TOGETHER WITH THE EXCITING SOUND OF LATIN TEMPO, AS CREATED BY PETE RODRIGUEZ AND HIS CONJUNTO, HAVE CAUSED QUITE A STIR AMONG ALL THE LISTENING AND DANCING AUDIENCES EVERY WHERE FINGERS ARE SNAPPING AND HEADS ARE BOBBING IN RHYTHM TO THIS DIFFERENT AND STIMULATING NEW BEAT THUS THE LATEST SOUND AND DANCING CRAZE HAS BEEN BORN. 'THE LATIN BOOGALOO', PETE RODRIGUEZ HAS BEEN A SUCCESSFUL MUSICIAN AND ORCHES. TRA LEADER FOR MANY YEARS AND THEREFORE HAS DEVELOPED A KEEN FEELING FOR THE CURRENT TRENDS WHICH HAS HELPED MAKE THE PETE RODRIGUEZ CONJUNTO ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL BANDS IN NEW YORK CITY THE RESPONSE TO THE LATIN BOOGALOO HAS BEEN SO OVER WHELMING THAT PETE RODRIGUEZ COLLABORATED WITH HIS COM POSERS, TONY PABON, AND MANNY RODRIGUEZ, WHO ARE MEM BERS COF THE CONJUNTO, AND CREATED A CHOICE OF TUNES THAT REFLECT THE DRIVE AND SPIRIT OF THIS CONJUNTO THE STYLE IN WHICH THIS ALBUM IS COMPOSED MARKS A NEW ez- ACHIEVEMENT IN THE FIELD OF LATIN AMERICAN MUSIC IS EVERYBODY READY. . LATIN BOOGALOO IS HERE!

don't that beat tapping on the keyboard when you're half seas over?

If you check the original sleevenotes it seems that Google Translate has simply found and reproduced the existing English language text, rather than done the work itself.

That alone is impressive, but sadly (or happily, if you're a human translator) we're still light years away from direct computer translations that read naturally or accurately.

[babycart]

That link wasn´t clear. Here's the original back cover





Now if Google has matched Japanese text to the text on a jpeg, that's pretty amazing. But it isn´t translation.

[Turboellis]

In this particular case, I'm not expecting Google Translate to translate anything. I'm using the OCR (character recognition) part of the app to just grab the text. (If you change the settings to: English -> Japanese, that's what you'll get. That's not what I want)

Obviously there are plenty of other apps that do character recognition, but I already use this for translation and it takes the grunt work out of data entering a lot of text, which is great for long track listings ...

As peretti says, just download it, try it out, you'll soon find out if it's going to be useful to you or not ...

[peretti]

BC'S right. On closer investigation the Translate app project is linked to Google Goggles which is image - recognition software and pretty impressive in its own right. Goggles doesn't interpret what's in the picture, just matches it with metadata if the image already exists on Google's servers. If it can't do that it tries to finds pics that are 'similar in composition', although they almost never are. Then again, its potential improves with every new image that gets added. With almost a trillion images posted every year online, and pretty much all of them going through Google, it's got a lot to work with. Their native pic recognition software is still a little shaky: http://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/...osgorillas.jpg

[babycart]

BC'S right. ]

I don´t think I am, actually. I think I'm a twat. I thought it translated from a second language, but reading it again it seems to render text found in an image so you can work with it.
I thought Turboellis had scanned a Japanese version of Pete Rodriguez, but reading it again I assume he processed a photo of the English sleeve notes and ended up with the text he printed.

Apologies, Turboellis.

[peretti]

Ah, okay so it's the OCR bit. I'll go back to watching gravity defying Cossacks.

[Turboellis]

Nay problem, babycart.