PERSONAL DICTIONARY AND TRANSLATOR DEVICE

摘要

A handheld dictionary and/or translation device includes an optical scanning element activated by one of an optical switch activated by proximity to text to be scanned, a one-way mechanical switch within the scanning element activated by contact with a printed page, and a mechanical switch separate from the optical element. When activated, the device may be used to scan one or more printed word(s) by wanding the optical element over the word(s). In one aspect, the device includes a display that is activated simultaneously with the optical element. Once the unknown word is scanned, optical character recognition software converts the word to an electronic format, and a controller retrieves the word's definition (or translation) from a corpus within the device for output to the display and/or an audio speaker. The device may be incorporated within a cellular telephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a pager, or a handheld computer.