inno-help.html - this page is closely inter-related. Please read without fail.
Please note:
In the context of what I have said below, kindly see indic.html - this page hosts a comprehensive list covering very many softwares available for computing in Tamil and various other Indian languages. It also carries my short or detailed comments/reviews on few of the softwares. Kindly also read spread.html to see what best you can do to spread the news of Azhagi and all softwares of its kind, for the benefit of the global society.
Intro
In 2004, in an interview given to a webzine, I had this to say. User requests for a Tamil translator or a Voice recognition software or Azhagi in Linux/MAC or ... or ... have been existing ever since 2000 itself. For such users to get an understanding of what it takes to develop these innovative softwares (including the currently existing ones) and also as a sort of a detailed sequel to what I had opined in 2004, I compiled the following in 2007.
Innovations or Enhancements in the "Language Computing" field - in general
- Tamil Voice recognition (Tamil Speech to Text) software which can perfectly identify both male and female voices in different dialects. Much the same for all other languages.
- English to Tamil Translation; Tamil to English Translation. Much the same for all other languages (as of now, certain established companies are coming up with Indian languages translation too, slowly and steadily).
- A sophisticated multi-dialect Tamil 'Text-2-Speech' engine with both male and female voice. Much the same for all other languages, so that text in any language can be read out perfectly, with 100% understandability, to the needy ones.
- Azhagi (or any such 'userfriendly' software, for that matter) in mobile phones and other similar gadgets (ipod, blackberry, etc.) in all languages so that user is able to input text quite easily.
- Comprehensive Tamil-to-Tamil Dictionary with loads of sophisticated features - incl. wildcard search, voice (an advanced talking dictionary!), etc.
- Comprehensive English-to-Tamil Dictionary with very many sophisticated features.
- Comprehensive Tamil-to-English Dictionary with very many sophisticated features.
- Comprehensive Tamil Thesaurus with very many sophisticated features.
- Comprehensive Tamil Spellchecker operating from within all applications.
- Comprehensive Tamil Grammar Checker operating from within all applications.
- All of 5 to 10 for all languages.
- OCR (Optical character recognition) softwares which are 100% perfect for all languages so that one can scan all printed material in any language and convert them to editable text ever so easily.
- A software to type out text in any language by taking as input one's mental thoughts itself vide brain waves (well, anything is possible!)
- Azhagi (or any such 'userfriendly' software, for that matter) in Linux, MAC or any new Operating System (released in future by one or more entities) in all languages with all of the features as listed in the above points.
. ... ....... .... and many more of the above kind ... ..... ..
But then, for developing/enhancing each one of the 'innovative' softwares (as listed above or currently existing), enormous amount of time and other resources (man, machine, money, etc.) are needed. And, resources are needed NOT only for development but also for testing, release, further enhancements, purchase of many other softwares for coding/testing in them, demos, awareness campaigns, advertisements, customer support, etc. etc. etc. In my humble opinion, all this is ideally possible only in a company environment (esp. if the company is an already established one worldwide) so that not only a product is developed and released but also it becomes globally known at the very earliest - i.e. the awareness/support of/for a released product is fast and immediate, so that the whole of the global society is benefitted by a product at the very earliest, at all times. And, if any established company has to do all of the aforesaid processes free of cost, double the resources might be needed for them.
In my humble opinion, a few of the abovementioned tools/softwares might have been available for mankind very many years back itself, but for certain factors. Well, in future, certain radical changes might take place whereby all these tools get created sooner than later, and available to the whole of the mankind - totally free of cost. It might happen. We have to wait and see. As for me, I am 100% sure that one day in the future, all the abovementioned stupendous softwares for language computing will be readily available at all times, free for all. Let this mankind wait until then, as it has waited for centuries together for various other discoveries and inventions. Think of electricity - how long this mankind had to wait for this precious invention!!!
A brief on Azhagi
For those of you who quickly wish to know as to how Azhagi has remained a peerless innovation since 2000, it's unique transliteration tools (like Reverse Transliteration, Auto Transliteration, Dual Screen Transliteration, SAT transliteration, etc.) and all it's other features, please click here.
About me
If you are interested to know about me, the developer of Azhagi, kindly please refer to author.html and story.html. In short, I am an individual developing/enhancing Azhagi (and azhagi.com) since 1997 or so, with the ever-so limited resources (software, hardware, OS, health, time, money, etc., etc.) available to me. Whatever best I could do so far with my limited resources, I have done. I am more than happy with whatever appreciation and media reviews Azhagi has received so far. It is also heartwarming to see Azhagi being useful to lakhs of users (individuals, professionals, companies, institutions, etc.) around the world. Thanks ever to the Lord Almighty, for everything.
