First happy (lunar) new year!

Story: This morning I wanted to send some Chinese SMS msgs from my phone, because today was the Lunar New Year. However, I couldn't find a way to give me easy translated strings... I searched a bit on the Internet; there were some S60 WRTs already, but none seemed to let me cut and paste the results... I was suprised no one (at least I couldn't find) had created a Google Translate version for S60. So I had done the engineer's way, write it myself; here I go... I wrote the whole thing in less then 20 min. Believe me, it took more time to upload the widget to MOSH, create the preview pictures, and write this post to tell you about it.

Comments and suggestions are welcome. If there are updates, I will post the links in this post or my personal blog here.

Some tips:

1) If you interested in reading more about Google AJAX Lanaguage API, here is the link: http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxlanguage/documentation/#Examples

2) If your favorite language(s), are not there you can change the code your self. Go into the widget index.html and change this section

    <select id="tlang">
      <option value="zh-TW">Chinese Trad</option>
      <option value="zh-CN">Chinese Simpl</option>
      <option value="en">English</option>
      <option value="fi">Finish</option>
      <option value="fr">French</option>
      <option value="de">German</option>
      <option value="it">Italian</option>
      <option value="ja">Japanese</option>
      <option value="ko">Korean</option>
      <option value="pt">Portuguese</option>
      <option value="es">Spanish</option>
    </select><br/>

 (there are other resources about widget development, for example here, so I am not going into that here.)

That is really, now here is the link in to download and install the widget:

Here is the first (0.1) version: GoogleTranslator0.1.wgz

Update 01:
I have put the index.html on my web, you can use any browser to use this web app (S40 and others):
http://camelot.net/stage/gtranslator/

Update 02, 2009.02.01:
Symbian Freak site has reported this widget, thanks guys! link

Update 03, 2009.02.25:
This widget has made top 10 freeware for Samsung over at AllAboutSymbian.com, thanks Steve! link

Update 04, 2009.04.06:
Since MOSH will be closing shortly, I have moved the widget file to this site. The link above is updated. Unforunately, I will not have the capability to track how many people have downloaded the widget... My last count of user download from MOSH is...

Update 05: 2009.04.18
If you are a developer and enjoy reading this, you might also be interested in my new article on Turn my S60 WRT into an iPhone app: http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/forum-nokia-web-talks/2009/04/19/turn-my-s60-wrt-widget-to-an-iphone-app

Update 06: 2009.08.28 

I suddenly decided to make a demo video... for no reason... kinda fun 

- Wai Seto

I have been doing desktop research for the past week on web browsing on mobile. Come across this recent report about China's mobile web user rise by 113% in 2008. 39.5% of Chinese Internet users  or More than 117 millions chinese users have gone online from their mobile. 

Neilsen Mobile has reported that in their News Release that Mobile Internet Extends the Reach of Leading Internet sites by 13%

There is another recent article on Wall Street Journal that talked about using cellphones to surf the Internet is booming in emerging market like Indonesia.

These are positive signs leading to the trend that web is becoming more integrated with mobile technology. The improvement in handsets technology as well as the robust/high speed mobile network with affordable bundled/flat rate data pricing has helped in the moving the trend. 

Browsers on Nokia S60 (3.1, 3.2, 5th edition) and Series 40 6th edition devices support full web browsing. From our consumer research, Smartphone 360 in UK, Nokia web browser is one of the popular applications used by consumers and its usage increased over the years 2005 - 2008.

Dont you agree that it is increasingly difficult to talk about Internet, without the conversation quickly turning to mobile phones?