Worldictionary - GIVEAWAY!

I was recently given the opportunity to try out and review an iPhone app called Worldictionary.  Worldictionary is a translation app that harnesses the powers of the iPhone camera and Google translation services to give you real-time translation of text from over 20 languages into over 50 languages.  Basically you set the from/to language pair very easily by tapping on the language at the bottom of the screen (or reverse the pair by tapping a quick reverse icon), then you focus the center of the camera image on the word you wish to translate.  There is a circle at the center of the camera viewfinder that shows an outline while you are moving around, and a solid circle when it is focused on a word.  The word comes up and so does the translation.  In addition, on the bottom right of the screen, it gives you an icon to let you hear the pronunciation of the word (not the translated word, but the actual word you are pointing at).  It also tries to give you some guidance on word usage by looking at 2-word pairs, and in this way it helps to avoid incorrect translations of expressions that lose their meaning when translated literally word for word.

The app also allows manual input through the iPhone keyboard, in case you have a shaky hand or in situations where the camera might be able to focus on the word you want (if it's far away on a billboard or road sign, for example).  You have the option of enabling the iPhone flash too, so you can still use the Worldictionary app in low light situations.

Once the word is translated, you can click on it to look it up in the dictionary, in Wikipedia, and for some reason, also on YouTube.  I'm not quite sure why the YouTube integration is there, but the dictionary and Wikipedia links are useful as you can quickly and easily find out more about the word in question.  The app also keeps track of your previous translated words, in case you quickly want to go back and see info about any of them.  You can even set bookmarks on words if you think you'll be needing them again.

Overall, I found the app to be easy to use, very effective at translating, and the app performed quickly and correctly identified everything I threw at it.  If I had to make a few suggestions for improvement, I would like to see pronunciation available for both the original text AND the translated text, since I was mostly translating my native English to other languages and not vice-versa.  I would also like to see some sort of automated detection of the language of the source text, because I could imagine in some cases, if you are looking to translate something into your native language, you may not always know what exactly the source language is.  I've been assured that the automatic detection of the language of the source text is coming in a future version, so that's exciting!

I think this app would be great to use with kids that are learning to read - if they have it handy, and don't know how to pronounce/read a word, they can easily use the app in English to (anything) mode - then the app will read the English word to them.  It may not be that great for really young readers, if they're like mine, and don't have a super steady hand to hold the iPhone steady while detecting a word.  Also, if I ever have the opportunity to travel to a country where I don't speak the language, I will definitely be making good use of this app.  And right now I think it will be fun and handy the next time I get to a Chinese restaurant - then I'll know once and for all what's REALLY in the Szechuan Chicken dish.

Worldictionary is available in iTunes for $5.99 and you can read more about the app on the company's website at http://worldcard.penpowerinc.com/product.asp?sn=300

Wait, there's more!  One lucky (Canadian or US) reader will win a promo code for their very own copy of Worldictionary!  To enter, just leave a comment below telling me why you'd love to win this.

Plus earn up to 3 extra entries by:

1. Liking "Geekmommy Reviews" on Facebook and telling me you did this in the comments (be sure to let me know your name on Facebook)
2. Following @geekmommyreview on Twitter and tweeting about this giveaway (be sure to link to the tweet in the comments)
3. Following this blog on Google Friend Connect and telling me you did this in the comments

Winner will be drawn on Friday August 12th, Monday August 15th, 2011 using Random.org.  Your odds of winning obviously depend on number of entries received.

*Disclaimer:  Geekmommy Reviews was given free of charge the product/software to review in exchange for featuring this product on http://www.geekmommyreviews.com.  Any opinions or statements given above come only from Geekmommy Reviews and were not influenced in any way by the product vendor.

Contigo AUTOSEAL Madison Water Bottle (24 fl oz/750 mL)

It looks like we are finally into the hot, sunny days of summer.  The days where you can easily rush about for hours out in the sun, only to realize at lunchtime that you are thirstier than you have been in a long time, because you didn't take a break to get a glass of water.  Oops!  And if you're like me, by this time, you probably have a headache from the dehydration, and a baby wanting to nurse (how are you supposed to make milk if you don't have enough liquid in your body to hydrate yourself??)

I have taken to using my Contigo water bottle to make sure that I always have something to drink with me, wherever I go.  The water bottle holds about 24 fl oz or 750 mL of liquid, and has a waterproof top that screws on for a tight seal.  The top has a nifty mechanism built in that allows the liquid inside to come out only when you are ready - it has a button you push with your fingers that opens up the hole near your mouth when you drink.  The top also has a carabiner style clip on it that lets you clip the bottle onto your purse, backpack, stroller, even to the belt loop on your jeans if you're really desperate for a place to put it.  The Contigo water bottle is made of sturdy BPA-free plastic (remember the indestructible Nalgene bottles?  It's like that.  I've actually left mine on the roof of my car and driven away, had the bottle fly to the pavement, and it barely had a scratch on it.

These reusable water bottles are much more environmentally sound than continuously buying single-use water bottles, and much cleaner & better for you than reusing single-use bottles.  I find them to be a lot easier to keep clean than the narrow-neck aluminum or stainless steel bottles, and they don't dent when you accidentally drop them.  (Or am I the only one with a cupboard full of reusable metal water bottles that won't stand up because the bottoms are awkwardly dented?)  They can go in your dishwasher, mine have even survived the bottom rack, but we don't use the heat-dry option, so do that at your own risk.  The tops are dishwasher safe but you can be more thorough with the cleaning if you do it by hand with a mini bottle brush type thing.

Now I do have one peeve about these bottles, though it hasn't stopped me from using them.  That is the top has a vent to let the air in when the water comes out.  Nothing wrong with that, except this vent has a plastic cap with a couple small gaps/holes when it's installed, which not only allow the air to get in, but also allow gunk from your dishwater/dishwasher in, and worst case, it could let small insects inside as well (say, if you're gardening and putting your bottle on the grass beside you...).  Let me tell you the story of the earwig...well it's not much of a story, except that it took me a LONG time to figure out what that "funny smell" was every time I took a drink... turns out it was an earwig that had crawled into the air vent space (once I forgot my bottle outside overnight...) and it died in there...and I imagine every run through the dishwasher disintegrated it a bit more...  Well I ended up prying the vent lid off, and found the earwig, I washed it out about a thousand times, threw up a little in my mouth, and debated whether to keep the bottle or to throw it away.  Well it turns out that my love for the Contigo bottle exceeded the yuck factor, so I kept it.  But from that day forward I made sure to pull up the air vent cover on all my Contigo bottles before running them through the dishwasher, to make sure that nothing gross got stuck in the air vent space.

Well, now that I've thoroughly grossed you out, I'll tell you that you can get these bottles at Costco for under $20 for a set of three, or follow the embedded purchase links to get them from Amazon.  You may possibly also be able to buy them elsewhere.  And when you get them, I have two tips.  One: don't leave them outdoors in the grass overnight and Two: if they smell funky at some point in the future, try prying off the air vent cap and clean it out thoroughly.

You can read more at Contigo's website: http://www.gocontigo.com/water-bottles.html.

What's your favourite way to stay hydrated on the go?

GoGo Navigator USA & CAN

I'll admit, I have always been a Google Maps kind of girl.  Email yourself the directions before you go, follow the line on the map on your phone while you're on the road.  If you get lost, pull over, and re-route.  Free, easy, and mostly effective.  However, that was before I tried using the GoGo Navigator USA & CAN iPhone app.  I received this app for review on Monday morning, which was handy since I was doing a lot of driving over the next few days - visiting my parents, off to the beach, back home to my parents via the grocery store, back to my own home the next day, and off to run errands the day after.

But I have to say, the developers of this GPS navigation app have thought of just about everything. When you first launch it, there is a warning screen that reminds you not to use the app while driving (you should really just program in your trip before you depart). Once you agree, you are taken to the main screen which shows where you are right now. You can program in your destination (address, points of interest such as "nearest gas station", or Google search) and any stops along the way, and then let GoGo Navigator calculate the route for you based on shortest time or shortest distance. Then as you drive, it gives you excellent directions, with warnings 300m/0.25mi before any turns, and reminders just before the intersections. I found it really nice how it would recalculate my route if I took a different road than it suggested. It also gave me the option of having the prompts given by a male or female voice, in English, French, Spanish, or even Korean (I think...)! The default voice has a Text To Speech (TTS) feature which meant that it didn't just say "turn left", but it would actually say "turn left onto Bananarama Road" (obviously a made up street name, but serves the purpose of giving an example). This is terrific, especially when you don't know the area, because you can see the street names on the signs and be sure that you are on the correct route. The app sometimes got confused in parking lots, since these don't show up on maps (most of the ones around here didn't, anyhow), but this wasn't a big deal because by the time I had reached my destination parking lot, I did not need the directions anymore.

I was really impressed that it knew the speed limit of the roads I was driving on, and both my mom and I found the speed limit warning super helpful. Basically anytime we might have been exceeding the speed limit (you know those roads that go from 80 km/hr to 50km/hr when you least expect it?) the voice in the app would speak up and say "Warning! Speed limit exceeded!" but without any judgement, unlike what some backseat drivers or paranoid spouses might do. My dad remarked dryly that maybe the app was capable of reporting our occasional speed excesses to the police, but so far that does not seem to be the case :-). It is really a useful feature to help you, especially if you were born with a lead foot like I was. There was just one place along the route I drove on Tuesday where this data was incorrect, so it warned me against speeding, even though I wasn't. I would guess that this data would be incorrect in any GPS app, since it probably comes from a common central source.

One other really cool feature that this app has is Live Traffic. I unfortunately could not try out this feature because the data is not available in my home city, but it's available in most large cities across the US and even some in Canada.  I can imagine the live traffic feature would be very helpful on our next trip driving in Boston though! It is a one time in-app purchase for $8.99, but would be worth it if it helped us not sit in traffic with a baby in the back who cries when ever we stop...

I could go on about the other features of this app (metric vs imperial units, multiple stops on itinerary, different route views, zoom in/out, ETA calculation, point of interest search, and much more), but I really think you should imagine all the ways it can help you when you are driving, especially if it's an area where you don't drive often. It will save you time and frustration by guiding you to your destination. I wish I'd had this app when I was in Las Vegas a few years ago, it took us forever (for some odd reason) to get off the highway onto the strip, but if we had this app we could have been out partying much sooner! (OK, I'll admit, I went straight to bed, it was a late flight!). It can also save you from any unwanted arguments with other passengers about asking for directions...that alone is worth the price of admission.

GoGo Navigator USA & CAN is a great deal at only $29.99, it does not require any extra maps to be downloaded, and looks & works great right out of the gates.  It's easy to use, and has a ton of features.  To find out more about GoGo Navigator USA & CAN, you can do so by visiting:
iTunes - http://bit.ly/m7T0FY
Demo Video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLDY4TLg_mA
Live Traffic Demo - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-cCHZKcNHw
Website - http://www.gogonavigator.com/


*Disclaimer:  Geekmommy Reviews was given free of charge the product/software to review in exchange for featuring this product on http://www.geekmommyreviews.com.  Any opinions or statements given above come only from Geekmommy Reviews and were not influenced in any way by the product vendor.