Playing with the blingbling phone.

On Monday I took a cab to school and the driver used the traffic jam to show me his phone, the "bling bling" (블링블링), the LG canU-F1100. I'll say first off that I'm not up on the latest technology---this phone came out in March---and pretty much any gadget will impress me. When I bought my first digital camera in 2005, for example, I was impressed that it could take photos and videos, and when I went to Home Plus last year I was surprised they now made printers that could also scan and copy. I have no idea how common what I'm about to show you is, but I thought it was neat. Anyway, I'm sure the phone has all kind of neat features that I would never, ever figure out how to use, but what caught my eye was the dictionary. The phone has built-in phrasebooks in English, Japanese, and Chinese---he made it tell me "You're a charming woman"---and you can even trace unknown Chinese characters onto the keypad to figure out what they mean. Take a tour on the phone's website (first allow the pop-up).

After choosing the "Dictionary Showroom" button under the "Blingbling Canu" tab on the menu, you can start a tour. Besides just a dictionary, there are also phrasebooks that you can browse---on the phone, not the tour---based on a number of different situations. At first I was confused by the need for "May I take your picture?" but maybe this will encourage people to ask before photographing white people.



A Japanese dictionary, too.



Chinese and Japanese phrasebooks as well. You can also write Chinese characters or Japanese alphabets, and the dictionary will look it up. On the demonstration, unfortunately, it does it for you; I wanted to see if it would recognize Chinese or Japanese written in the wrong order, which is how most foreigners would do it.



My phone---a LG-LB1500 bought second-hand in fall, 2007---has subway maps for all the Korean cities and a television that usually doesn't work in Jeollanam-do. *cough* And my cellphone back in the US rings when somebody calls. *cough* *cough*


Kim Tae-hee posing with the LG-LB1500. Because that's what she does.