London Javascript Meetup November 12, 2008

This is a group for people doing serious stuff with JavaScript. If you are building rich Internet applications, working with libraries or crafting cool code, you'll find people to share your experiences with. If you are just starting out, come and meet others who have been there. This is a place to share knowledge, ask questions, learn and grumble.

This time...

We're doing a bit of a special event this month, Robert Rees is organising a hack fest. We are hosting it at Thoughtworks' offices as Skills Matter can't do this date... there was even some mention of pizza.

Lots Of Pictures for Lots Of Words

Lots of Words is a translation site that uses Wikipedia articles to translate text by comparing the title of the same article in the various different language Wikipedia.

You access your translation via a humane url and what is returned is a JSON structure containing the suggested translation.

So for example to find the French word for Pumpkin you would use:

http://lotsofwords.com/en/fr/pumpkin

However Lots of Words does not have a nice front end to help you translate words let alone segments of text. Therefore we are proposing a HackFest to try and develop a front-end for the site.

Not only that but if you are translating a word into a language where you are not sure about how to pronounce the translation, e.g. Cyrillic or CJK languages, we want to retrieve pictures from Flickr that match the word we are trying to translate. Lots of Pictures for Lots of Words.

It would also be cool if there could be a small devices version of solution so that it could be used on an iPhone/Android phone to help communicate with pictures.

Of course if people have other ideas on how to use the translation that would be cool too.

The site is a bit alpha and it isn't a commercial product but is an interesting chance to create a truly international mashup.

Official Website: http://javascript.meetup.com/3/