Cloudlet-Based Multi-lingual Dictionaries

Abstract

Multilingual dictionaries on mobile devices with voice inputs generally require Internet connectivity, and such an application is resource intensive as well. The proposed cloudlet-based dictionary solution uses a system design where a nearby computer is used as a "cloudlet" to relieve the mobile device of most of the computational load. It does not require the type of expensive hardware and connectivity needed for classical cloud-based solutions. Our prototype application supports six languages for translation, but the framework, and the vocabularies used, are easily extensible and configurable. A user of our system can input a word in one language by typing or utterance, and get the corresponding word in the desired language. Our work does not require continuous internet connectivity and is not affected by WAN latency. With continuous connectivity being a luxury, this solution can be used to provide language translation in scenarios with limited Internet connectivity or bandwidth, and also in specialized and smaller settings where the complexity and expense of a standard cloud deployment is not feasible.