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Handheld Translator Also Sends E-Mail

Release supports Russian and English; 29 languages to follow.

By James Niccolai, IDG News   

The first version of the Language Teacher Partner is scheduled to ship in the United States and Russia next week, priced at $399. English is the base language in all of Ectaco's products, and the first release will translate between English and Russian. Ectaco plans to add other languages throughout the year, eventually supporting 30, said Michael Averbach, vice president.

The palm-size unit contains a modem so it can perform e-mail and fax transmissions when hooked to a telephone line. It can translate an entire incoming or outgoing e-mail message at the push of a button, Averbach said.

The Language Teacher Partner has 2MB of memory and personal digital assistant functions. It includes an address book and calendar and can be synched with a PC using an optional adapter cable.

"We're aiming this at the traveling executive, but it's also a good learning device," Averbach said. The product won a Consumer Electronics Show Innovation Award and will be launched in Moscow this month.

In a demonstration, the device did a reasonable job of translating an English sentence into Russian. A user typed on the minikeyboard, "Where are you going in your shiny black car?" The Language Teacher Partner produced the Russian translation, "Where are you going to be in your gleaming black car?" Like speech recognition products, automatic translation devices rarely achieve 100-percent accuracy. The product also includes a voice synthesizer to help users with translation.

Ectaco also announced the Universal Translator, a handheld device that also translates English and Russian but has no e-mail, fax, or PDA features.

The $199 Universal Translator will support 29 languages through different cartridges that slide into the back of the unit. The cards cost about $50 each and will be available for German, French, and Spanish when the product ships this month, Averbach says.

The Universal Translator uses a touch-sensitive, pen-based keyboard that changes automatically with a new language card.