Translation Pen Lacks Practicality

Robert Macholl

Novotech's Penscan Translation Pen aims at scanning and recognizing small portions of text, such as addresses, names, and short sentences that you don't want to have to type into your Windows Office applications. It now comes with Globalink's Language Assistant translation software, which translates single words from German, French, Spanish, and Italian into English and vice versa. The different language versions come in separate modules.

The Penscan has a resolution of 400 dpi. For a hand-held scanner that enables you to scan text directly into other applications, this resolution is quite adequate. But the system's on-line translation is of only limited use. For instance, the unit's translation software worked well wi th formal writing and some col loquial expressions. However, it failed to translate most technical terms. Unfortunately, the system does not accept dictionaries for specialized disciplines.

The major drawback of the Penscan system is that to get clear scanning results, and for the OCR software to recognize the words in a book, you must hold the book in a horizontal position. Even with books that have large, 14-point type, the edges of stacked paper beneath a page can easily blur the scan. In short, the Translation Pen is a good concept, but unfortunately it fails to deliver any real-world benefit.

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Where to Find

Penscan.................DM 380

Novotech
Allensbach, Germany
Phone:    +49 753 393 210
Fax:      +49 753 393 2199
Enter HotBYTEs No. 1009.


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Not Pretty, Not Practical

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