Name: Quicktionary 2 Kanji Reader
Category: handheld scanner/dictionary
Price: Open price (about ¥30,000)
Release date in Japan: April 10, 2008

Thick kanji dictionaries have disappeared from many a desk, replaced by computers (often weighing less than the dictionaries) whose built-in software, or access to Internet search, makes tracking down a character's reading much simpler. But what to do when you come across an eye-stopping character in dead-tree text, with no guess at pronounciation to let you search online, and no access to a helpful human at the moment? Time to dust off the Nelson or Spahn/Hadamitzky tomes and try to recall how to count radical strokes, right?

It's Quicktionary 2 Kanji Reader to the rescue. You can call the handheld scanner by its nickname, "Kanji-kun", though the full name is likable enough. (It's clearly not a SONY device, or we'd have to call it the Q2-KR500SCN or such.)

Kanji-kun is a version of the WizCom Technologies Ltd. (Massachusetts USA) Quicktionary 2 line of pen-shaped scanners/translators. Quicktionary II appears in a variety of English-to-foreign language configurations; run the pen-like scanner tip over a single word or line of text, and the device's OCR software shows a target-language translation in the small embedded display. (You can get a text-to-speech reading of the English, as well.) WizCom partners with a number of foreign-language dictionary providers for its Quicktionary variants, including Taishukan Publishing for its Genius English-to-Japanese dictionary.

Quicktionary 2 Kanji Reader is a Quicktionary II with Japanese-language OCR, co-developed and sold by Tokyo-based purveyor of overseas technology Japan21 Inc. Run the tool over those questionable kanji, and wait two seconds - voila, Kanji-kun offers a text reading. Dictionary functions are of course built-in as well, thanks to three Sanseido Daily Concise dictionaries: English-Japanese, Japanese-English, and Japanese. Japan21 says Kanji-kun will read Romaji text, hiragana, katakana, all 2965 JIS Level 1 kanji, and about 20% of the 3388 JIS Level 2 kanji. (Text-to-speech output remains limited to scanned English text only.) Japan21 warns that Kanji-kun prefers nicely printed text; don't expect much when scanning trickier originals like handwriting or faxes.

I wonder how much my old kanji dictionaries will fetch at Book Off.

More info: http://wizcomtech.jp21.jp/product/qt2j.html (Japanese)

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