Funny world of Translation apps!

German is the most predominant of the four national languages of Switzerland. Its tough for one to manage with English in this country, since all sign boards, products and even tourist information is only in German. During my travel to the western and southern parts of Switzerland, a similar clear dominance of French and Italian, respectively was felt.

Having tried out few German translation apps, I setup Google Translate. While I was expecting a basic functionality to transliterate, it was mind-blowing to see that you could point your mobile camera at some text and Google would translate this into English. Reading a big board or a long sentence effectively meant just scanning the text, and reading off your mobile in your native language!

At first sight this looked uber cool and straight out of a science fiction movie. At play in the background were Google's separate technologies of 1) image scanning & text detection, 2) language identification and 3) translation, all neatly strung together to give a great experience. I've been wildly experimenting and giving this feature a ride over the past week.

Google Translate met its match when I tried this last week on a sign-board at the Drachenfels castle in Bonn, Germany. More on the picture-perfect 'Disney' castle in a later post. Below is a comparison of the actual sign in German, and what Google translated it to, for me (expletives alert)!

The original text	..and Google's translation!

In summary, as expected of a first-generation version of an innovative idea, this has limitations, well severe limitations. However,  its quite handy to get a rough idea of what some text is about, and that too in a convenient way by whipping out your mobile and pointing it at stuff. I will continue to use this and also the equally cool audio-translation feature, hoping this will get better, and not get abruptly killed by Google!

Adieu..

Yesterday was a sad day, as India's most famous president, renown missile scientist and beloved teacher, Bharat Ratna Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam passed away.

While the whole country is still in shock and grief, its worthwhile noting that he is unanimously loved by all, with almost no detractors - a terrific achievement in itself, for any public figure. In his decorated career, surprisingly, he is less remembered for his great achievements as a:

1. Scientist - where he has done marked contributions to India's missile project in its infancy, and to India's nuclear tests
2. Statesman - where he has brought repute to the office of President and he is perhaps the first and only president to be remembered, inspite of the titular post
3. Author - where he has penned several literary works like books and poems, which are still in demand like his 'Wings of Fire' or 'India 2020'.

Rather he is remembered for his role as an Educator and Mentor to the people and youth of the nation, a role which he continued until the final moments when he was lecturing the students at IIM, Shillong. Particularly striking and endearing is his humility and simplistic approach to things. Currently there are a thousand anecdotes doing the rounds of how he abrogated any special treatment, cut off the ceremonial entitlements, and maintained strict distance from all other luxuries that one could easily get addicted to. An even tougher ask, when one has occupied high offices, been in influential circles and is entitled to amazing perks. 

This, is my cherished learning from Dr. Kalam. I'm sure he'll stay in the hearts of the billion people and continue to drive us towards positive change.

2-Minutes to Notoriety!

Its been over a month and enough news-feed bytes have been transferred on how Nestle's Maggi got it all wrong, and ended up serving an unsavoury snack in India. This post is not about that. Maggi has also been the butt of a billion jokes over the past month. I do not intend to go into that either.

My brand association with Maggi is over 2 decades old, soon after the Swiss giant entered India. With their innovative promotion campaigns especially targeted at kids, they caught us young. The Maggi club with a catchy caption "'Maggi clubbers are fun lovers'", was the in-thing in those days when computers weren't around. Enrollment into this elite club was by sending empty wrappers of Maggi. Apart from continuously pestering parents for the 2-minute snack, primarily for the wrappers, we used to hang around the friendly neighborhood families collecting empty wrappers! Maggi captivated our attention with exciting goodies like board games, comics and several other gifts that had to be claimed by sending more wrappers. There was heightened competition amongst cousins and friends to get them all, and many a summer vacation was spent with these games. I've treasured this membership and the souvenirs, and still do, until recently.

Such are the fond memories I carry of Maggi. Association with the brand continued through my college days with a late-night companionship. Having the Maggi snack at midnight was pretty a routine thing in the campus. Apprehensions about ready-to-cook food and preservatives notwithstanding, I've been maintaining the connect through my working years, albeit at lower levels of consumption.

This is what pains me with the recent episode, while there is a deep sense of disappointment at the callous disregard for food safety standards. Its almost certain that Nestle being the global giant that it is, will muscle its way back into the country from the ban, and will spare no expense to erase this black episode. There are enough noises already questioning and cornering the FSSAI food-safety authority that tested the samples, which led to Maggi's ban. After all, the Indian consumer's memory is short-lived and we've forgotten several cola pesticide controversies and worm-filled chocolate episodes.

However, I wonder how many such long-time associations have been shattered, and would Maggi ever rise up to the same stature, to receive the warmth and trust from a generation that it grew up with?