₦airaland Forum

I don't agree with the ACN on this one.

Shameful!

No one can defeat Musiwa in a free and fair election in Nigeria

interesting

I hate Spo's guts. Cost my favorite player a ring this postseason

Dude needs to be fired. . .

I think that if you give Nigerian talent the same good power supply and internet connectivity (at least in major cities) that India has provided for its people, we can give anyone in the world a run for their money. At least in certain niche areas of technology.

Kudos to OAU

Ife researchers unveil local language text-to-voice application
By Ifedayo Adebayo
August 13, 2011 12:00PM
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Move over twitter. Nigerian texters unhappy that their messages can only be accessed by people able to read in English Language can now breathe easier as local researchers have concluded work on an application that renders texts in local languages in audio.

To help secure, protect, and bring back most of the local languages that are going into extinction, Information and Communication Technology researchers at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, last week unveiled the technology through which texts are converted into voice messages in Nigerian indigenous languages by the recipient’s handset.

The research work is led by Tunji Odejobi, a local computer expert in constraint satisfaction and programming and Rick Wallace, a professor at the Cork University, Ireland.

“Even if you don’t even know how to read and write in the formal sense of it, the technology can leverage that,” Mr Odejobi said.

“So technology has redefined what we call literacy now. But the key item in this is the use of language. If you want to a local language that doesn’t speak your language, then you can use technology to get your mind across to such people. That is what we have done. You can use what we are doing today to achieve such communication in various languages between the sender and receivers of a message. If we don’t do this, we are just going to kill our languages silently. It can help smoothen the culture by having common language of communication and giving other languages a place to showcase their values and culture too,” he added.

His co-researcher, Mr Wallace, spoke in the same vein.

“It depends on how it is received and used by the people and policy makers, but the language barrier and constraint has been broken. So, it requires straight revolution to make progress on this and get it across to the end user. This is the beauty of programming,” Mr Wallace said.

The vice chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University, Tade Omole, described the application as another feather to the numerous groundbreaking ICT based research that are related to the institution.

Speaking at the event to unveil the programme, Mr Omole urged participants to ensure that the discovery impacts positively on the entire public, government, noting that the research effort will help to ‘bring back most of the languages that are going into extinction.

“As I am aware that this is the first workshop on constraint modeling in Nigeria, if not in Africa, as a technologically developing country, one of our primary goals in science is to provide basic technology through which human condition can be improved upon,” Mr Omole said.

Participants also asked government to bolster the use of local languages, especially in school education and administering affairs of states. There was also a general consensus that instead of how multi-ethnicity and religion have caused crises around Nigeria, then its profitable use could go a long way to strengthen the country politically and economically.

The sponsor of the research work and the two weeks workshop, ALT, African Language Technology Initiative, through its director, Tunde Adegbola, said the need to break the barrier of languages in the industrial versus information development age is evident. He said just like his group, government should also rise to the challenges too.

“At the moment, we have assisted Microsoft to create the Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa versions of their operating systems and we have Microsoft Vista in the three languages and it was then launched by the former President Yar’Adua, then represented by the former minister of technology.”

“We have created language technology like speech recognizers; so that when you speak to computer in Yoruba, the computer will write all that you said with all the tone marks and when you present the text to computer, the computer will read it to you.

“The stage we are now is to pop all that to the cell phones, so that if you send your grandmother a text, the telephone can read it to your grandmother, rather than call the son of their rival wife to read it them, while actually there is need to be careful of that rival,” Mr Adegbola said.

For the nation’s progress

The school’s head of department of computer science and engineering, Rotimi Adagunodo, described the development as a new feature where human beings interact with machines.

“This is our effort to reduce the constraint in communication towards achieving further developmental growth in our environment.”

“I foresee that in the future, this project is going to lift us up as a nation. It will help us to operate at the same level and frequency with other nations, especially now that we are talking of globalisation, millennium development goals, vision 20:20-20 and the rest,” Mr Adagunodo said.

He said the need to unify and make local languages much easier for “our children to learn and adult to relate on the same basis” could be achieved if they are fully established and integrated into the system.

Participants at the unveiling were upbeat about its potential impact on human communication. But they called on government to learn from other countries in the world that have actually achieved progress by developing good values for their languages and culture.

“There are countries that do not speak any other languages other than their local languages, and because of their pride for values, cultures, and traditions of their people, anyone that want to deal with them would have to get an interpreter or use language technology to tap from their economy or values of benefits,” says Mr Adagunodo.

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5738699-146/story.csp

^-- Bleh, was in the middle of correcting the typos in my post, hehe

^-- Hehe, you saw that clip too? Kelly is a ten in my eyes

Johndoe100:
The truth is that most states pay 80% or more of their income / allocation to pay wages, why the false tears now? He should take the hit like a man and find a solution that does not short change the workers.

Another senseless statement. In your own personal life, do you piss away 90% of your money and only do something useful with it? If someone is in that situation, you'll tell them to "take their hit like a man"? You'd suggest perhaps borrowing to finance an unsustainable lifestyle perhaps? Borrowing to pay worker salaries?

Na wa o

May people who think like you and Beaf never gain power in Nigeria. You can run your own states in as profligate a manner as you like, but don't object to anyone else running their own state with a bit of common sense.

oyb:
our pdp hypocrite cannot stand that.  his blather about true federalism and self sufficiency of states is dead.

Hehe. Beaf I think envisions a "true federalism" in which state governors continue business as usual, living for today rather than investing for tomorrow.

How do you expect your true federalism to ever happen if states continue pissing away their allocations? Is governance in which 90%+ of allocations is wasted on recurrent expenditure likely to lead to long term prosperity?

Perhaps he envisions a "true federalism" in which the other parts of Nigeria become the SS's slave.

Hell no to that.

Carry go, Aregbe

[quote author=tpia@ link=topic=736473.msg8931904#msg8931904 date=1313460425]what's the reason for beaf's incessant interest in osun state when he claims to be from delta.[/quote]Aregbe has been smashing Beaf's wife

Aregbesola is 100% correct. Less recurrent expenditure, more capital expenditure is the only way for Nigeria (or any of its states) to move forward.

Heh.

Still cannot believe this dude posted that. Onlytruth is the type of guy who will return to Nigeria and blow smoke up people's @sses. "In yankee, even if the president falls sick, if his illness is not covered under his health insurance plan, the government will just let him die."

I hope your townsmen are sensible enough to take whatever you say with a heavy dosage of salt

Pifa:
How is Cali treating you?

Can't complain man. Just trying to wrap things up over the next year and then find a job. Looks like there is a decent chance of me actually settling here for a few years, at least. It has kind of grown on me a bit

I hope all is well on your side.

@Pifa: As usual, thanks for the informative posts.

It was mostly a NL tangent. The title of the article isn't really misleading. All of those things cited are challenges for investors. You have to remember that a businessman somewhere in Kaduna is also an investor too.

Regarding your second comment on wages. . . well, wages aren't the entire story, productivity is another issue. I have the general impression that Nigerian labor isn't very productive (at least from some previous stuff I read on the World Bank website.) Part of the problem of all this for me is that I'm getting mostly second-hand information, gleaning stuff from what I read. Anyway, if what you said earlier about construction work of these major projects CCECC and co does in Nigeria is true (i.e., that the lower-end stuff is mostly Nigerian labor, not Chinese like I thought), then a lot of the things I inferred/assumed earlier is probably wrong.

EDIT: Bleh, lol. OK, finally I see why you guys all thought it was foreign investors. The word "shun" I guess made you think it was foreigner investors alone. Despite the article probably not being primarily about foreigners. Fair enough.

I've always found kelly hotter than beyonce, personally

Though it would have been pretty funny/sad if they'd have just let Yar'Adua die

I wonder if the Ghanaian would have mixed that into their song about why Nigeria isn't doing well

I should have simply ridiculed your post and moved on rather than bothering to explain why no nation would just let their leader die anyhow, whether the illness is covered under Medicare or not.

But I may as well be explaining why 1+1=2 to you.

Onlytruth:
Posted by: ekt_bear
Oh! He finally nailed it! Bingo!   LMAO.

Hehe. Speaking of overestimating intelligence, it appears that I have made the same error. I assumed that you could read, for example:

In any case, the guy is important to the people of the SE on whom the money is being spent on behalf of. . .so unless SE people raise an objections, I don't see what the problem is.

Surprisingly enough, you quoted it but didn't seem to process it.

Indeed, I know nothing about where I have lived nearly my entire life. Thanks for educating me on how American society works. Much appreciated. Hehe.

Onlytruth:
Posted by: ekt_bear
No, you miss the point.
Civilized states have LAWS and regulations how a president's emoluments are paid, including medical bills.
In US, a president is on salary, just like in Nigeria. But in the US, if a president falls ill, MEDICARE (which is accessible to most aging Americans ) pay it. In Nigeria, the president's aids simply start to raid the treasury. 

Regardless of what the American law says, if President Obama is dying from some strange illness, the government will pay for it. The focus will be on what is important (saving the life of the president), not what is secondary. The logistics of who pays for it (whether Medicare or some other gov't program, or whether congress has to write a law retroactively justifying the expense) will be taken care of after, since they are a secondary concern.

You are missing the big picture of what is important and what is not. Regarding bolded. . . are you alleging that his aides used his illness as an excuse to steal money for purposes NOT related to his sickness? If so, that is an entirely different matter. One that is not justifiable. However, I suspect that this is not your point.

My point is that if Nigeria is a properly constituted country, it would be unnecessary for state governors to pay Ojukwu's bills (be he a private person or a president). His current status as the de facto leader of the Igbo nation ('cos that is what he is whether you accept it or not), would  be unnecessary.

Another stupid point. Anyway, I don't much care whether the SE zone decides to spend their money on Ojukwu or not. It is their right, imo. After all, they aren't asking anyone else to spend money on him. And unless SE citizens object to it, then I don't see what the problem is.

But don't justify it by making some m0ronic comparison to a sitting president.

This is why I found your post so extremely silly. Hehe.

Imagine if Obama had some life-threatening illness that were curable but not covered by his plan and the government just let him die.

"Sorry guys, President Obama didn't have coverage for illness X and is currently dying slowly and painfully! Hope you enjoy Biden!"

That is not the question i am asking. Will the state not do everything in its power to save even a dying GOVERNOR, regardless of his medical insurance plan, let alone a dying PRESIDENT?

If the president of the US (or any other country) falls ill and there aren't the facilities to take care of him, the government would (or should) just shrug its shoulders and let him die?

Do you even believe the crap that you are writing?

ola olabiy:
15b dollars?   Yet, no electricity. Who are the travelers? Half of Nigeria's budget. Maybe some people think banks are stupidd.

https://www.equipmentleasingspecialists.com/business-equipment-financing/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/shipping-container-leasing.jpg

+ people

How on earth can you compare a FG spending funds on an elected official, let alone a country's president to a government spending funds on a private citizen? They are not the same thing.

In any case, the guy is important to the people of the SE on whom the money is being spent on behalf of. . .so unless SE people raise an objection, I don't see what the problem is.

But comparisons to Yar'Adua are imo asinine.

And fwiw, I don't particularly care for either fellow.

deadie:
Chei, I have eaten assorted meat like snakes, frogs, insects, monkeys, dogs, vulture (only once), millipede, but no cat yet. This roasted cat with its tongue sticking out got me salivating

Lol, vulture? Tastes like chicken, I guess?

Roasted or fried?