SnaPanda English Dictionary – Skip Typing, get Definitions by Scanning Words with this Augmented Reality Dictionary!
by Jonathan Lonczak
Jul 25, 2011 2:53 PM –
Install
SnaPanda English Dictionary. Free English tactile dictionary. Not a translator, and more than your average dictionary, SnaPanda helps you master new English words. Just touch any written English word through your smartphone camera and our homemade programming “grabs” it, then uses OCR technology to give you the definition.
Price: Free
Tested on: HTC Droid Incredible 2, HTC Thunderbolt
Content Rating: Everyone
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Android’s First Augmented Reality Dictionary!
- Extremely easy to use!
- Uses flash on your camera as flashlight for night time mode!
- Supports manual entry!
- Provides definitions and expressions!
- Supports a word search history and user defined lists!
Cons
- No thesaurus.
- No synonyms.
- No option to use Google Translate on definitions
Features:
SnaPanda English Dictionary is an augmented reality dictionary for the Android OS. SnaPanda allows you to use your phone as a pocket dictionary, when you point your phone’s camera at words using the app, it will isolate and offer definitions, as well as example sentence usage. The app also features a search history, word lists, a manual entry mode, and a night time reading feature.
To use SnaPanda, to identify a word you are unfamiliar with through your phone’s camera, all you need to do is run the application and click on “Snap a Word.” The application will show the images being received from your phone’s camera and display three lines through the area visible through the camera to act as margins for the typed words you are trying to interpret. In order to look up the definition of a word you merely line up the sentence with the margins displayed on screen and then tap the word you wish to learn about with your finger. The application will take a few seconds to process and then show the selected word in the upper left hand corner of the screen. The accuracy of this feature was very good as long as the words being selected were typed on a flat surface. If they were positioned on an incline or in more than one color, the application would sometimes get confused and suggest one letter or sometimes nothing at all.
If you were using the application at night and wanted to look up a word you can turn on the SnaPanda “flashlight” which is displayed with the options on the right side of the augmented reality screen. The “flashlight” is just your phone’s flash, but works perfectly for lighting up the page of a book at night time in order to get a definition for a word. This was an excellent feature to incorporate since many times users will read in a lower light environment than our cameras are able to view, and without this feature the application would more than likely be useless at night.
In order to research the selected word you will need to select the “Go & Find” button at the top right hand portion of the screen. SnaPanda will then show the possible matches for the word you selected and you will choose the appropriate match for the word which you need a definition for. SnaPanda will then show you the dictionary definitions for the word selected and give you the option to the word being used in a sentence by selecting the “Expressions” button. If you prefer the standard dictionary search versus the augmented reality kind you can select “Type a Word” to type into the application the word you want a definition for, and it will search for that word directly and present you with the same definitions and expressions.
SnaPanda also supports word “lists” which allows you to make lists of your favorite words, or words that you would like to review at a later date. The application does this by keeping a history of all your word searches and allowing you to save each word/definition to one of these lists. The application comes with three standard lists: History, All My Words, and My First List. However, more lists can be created by the user at any time.
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SnaPanda English Dictionary
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SnaPanda Main Screen
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Snapanda Word View
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Snapanda Word Search
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SnaPanda Definition 1
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Snapanda Definition 2
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Snapanda Which Word Is It
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Snapanda Lists
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Snapanda History
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Snapanda Help
Usefulness:
SnaPanda is a useful application for those of us that would like a word’s definition without having to type the word in to the dictionary. Unfortunately that isn’t going to be a big deal for most users, especially those of us that use the Dictionary.com application which provides definitions, example sentences, and synonyms with a thesaurus. Luckily this application is in Beta so these are all things that will likely be included in later versions to compliment the basic interface of the application. I can see a huge potential for this application with foreign students who are just learning English. If SnaPanda were to include some of the features of their competitors and possibly add in a Google Translate option to help foreign students to understand the English definitions, then it would be fully featured. In the future this could replace the talking dictionaries that most foreign exchange students currently use.
Ease of Use:
SnaPanda is extremely easy to use and I would not anticipate anyone struggling to use this application. The interface is extremely straightforward. With the addition of more features, this application would be quintessentially useful to foreign students and would present no issues to them in usage. If the application retains this interface in future updates it will probably be one of the easiest to use dictionaries around.
Frequently Used:
I personally would not use SnaPanda frequently because I prefer dictionary applications with more options like Dictionary.com and as an English speaker it is easy for me to type in a word I am unfamiliar with into the dictionary. However, if you are not an English speaker or have trouble spelling longer words and wanted to be able to look up definitions on the fly this application would be a frequent flier for you. It is also a really cool application to use to “WOW” your friends!
Interface:
SnaPanda is extremely easy to use and has a very straightforward application interface. It has a very light hearted theme which will appeal to people of all ages, and all of the options are out in the open and easy to find. The interface for this application is perfect the developers just need to incorporate extra features into the application to build product value.
Tags:
Android App,
Android Apps,
AndroidTapp.com App Review,
Augmented Reality,
Books & Reference,
Dictionary,
OCR,
Real-Time OCR,
SnaPanda,
SnaPanda English Dictionary
Categorised in: Books & Reference
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