Put away that Chinese dictionary, says Penpower Technology Ltd (蒙恬科技). One of the Taiwanese company’s products — Mini ScanEYE II — can save you some time when looking up that pesky Chinese character.
This device is a pen-shaped scanner that connects to your computer via USB cable. It scans and digitizes printed text, which then can be used with the accompanying Chinese-English and English-Chinese dictionary software.
Mini ScanEYE comes in handy for those struggling through a newspaper article or book written in Chinese. It saves readers the headache of looking up an unfamiliar word, which can be a timely process for non-native speakers as Chinese characters are not
written phonetically.
Using Mini ScanEYE is simple enough — swipe the device over the printed text, and it shows up on your screen, in the program of your choice. The device and software use optical character recognition technology, or OCR technology, to scan and read text.
The manual suggests using Mini ScanEYE with a word processor such as Wordpad or Microsoft Word. Once the text appears, you can check the definition by placing the mouse cursor over the word and selecting the “translation” button from a popup screen. A balloon displays the definition in English or Chinese, a function similar to Dr Eye, a popular dictionary program in Taiwan for Microsoft Windows. There is also a “voice” button that plays pre-recorded pronunciations for each word.
A faster way to look up words is to use
the included Penpower Translator software, which has Chinese-English and English-Chinese dictionaries in both simplified and traditional characters. It instantly displays the definition, with the Zhuyin Fuhao (注音符號) (commonly known as bopomofo) pronunciation, as you scan in the text. There is also a “sentence translation” function comparable to online services like Google Translate or Yahoo! Babel Fish.
While a great idea in concept, Mini ScanEYE is a mixed bag. Inevitably, some characters won’t scan properly, which requires fiddling with the software to find the correct word. The pen’s scanner tip, which is about 3mm wide, can’t scan large font text such as newspaper headlines.
To access or tweak many of the Mini ScanEYE’s features, there is an awkward user interface. The dictionary is mediocre (Dr Eye once again comes to mind), and appears to favor learners of English.
Mini ScanEYE’s need for a USB connection keeps you tethered to a computer, which might feel cumbersome for some.
Penpower does have a wireless version, Super ScanEYE, which has a built-in 1-inch screen and runs on AAA batteries, but its frustrating menu design takes some time to learn. Super ScanEYE also appears to favor learners of English over Mandarin learners; the pen does not display either the Hanyu Pinyin (漢語拼音) or Zhuyin Fuhao pronunciation.
Although Mini ScanEYE and Super ScanEYE are marketed as tools for beginner Chinese learners, they seem more suited to intermediate and advanced students. Consider these products if you spend a lot of time reading printed text and can make do with rough definitions, and more importantly, if you’re willing to spend between around NT$4,000 for Mini ScanEYE or NT$6,200 for Super ScanEYE. Mini ScanEYE is available for Microsoft Windows only.
On the Net: pce.penpowerinc.com
—BY DAVID CHEN
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