Voice recognition, Oxford dictionary and 150 hours of non-stop learning

Aug 1, 2006 12:19 GMT  ·  By

If you are Japanese and you want to learn some new words in English by using the help brought by the latest technology, you should think of buying Sharp's newest Papyrus PW-V9550, which is an electronic English-Japanese dictionary that also sports an English-English Oxford dictionary and a Text-To-Speech (TTS) capability.

If you are interested in this fast-learning promising gadget, you should also know that you can take it with you wherever you go, as it weighs only 296 grams and it measures 141mm x 108.5mm x 19.9mm.

From the point of view of the high tech industry, this papyrus is quite a catch, as the company thought of integrating an SD memory card reader and a relatively good LCD display coming with a 320 x 240 pixel dot-matrix resolution. Therefore, you will be able to pause and listen to some music while you take your breath between learning sessions.

The dictionary is power-driven by two LR03 batteries, and the manufacturer guarantees for an extended, almost impressive, battery life of up to 150 hours.

Sharp's Papyrus sports also a shuffle test function which you can use to test your skills on various levels of difficulty, as this little baby is able to pop no less than one million questions and recognize your voice as it corrects your pronunciation. In addition, you can also listen to your voice because it has been previously recorded while you were exercising your English.

For its features it doesn't come with a high price - JPY 52,500, about $450. So, if you want to improve your English skills now is the time, as the Papyrus will be on the shelves starting August 4 in white and pink.