April 1996 > OneLook Dictionaries, a "fast finder" in online dictionaries
Robert Ware launched his website OneLook Dictionaries in April 1996 as a "fast finder" in hundreds of online dictionaries. On September 2, 1998, the fast finder could "browse" 2,058,544 words in 425 dictionaries covering various topics: business, computer/internet, medical, miscellaneous, religion, science, sports, technology, general, and slang. OneLook Dictionaries was provided as a free service by the company Study Technologies, in Englewood, Colorado. OneLook Dictionaries could browse 2.5 million words from 530 dictionaries in 2000, 5 million words from 910 dictionaries in 2003, and 19 million words from 1,060 dictionnaries in 2010.
Mai 1996 > DAISY, a standard for digital audiobooks
Founded in May 1996, the DAISY Consortium (DAISY first meant "Digital Audio Information System" before meaning "Digital Accessible Information System") is an international consortium responsible for the transition from analog audiobooks available on tapes or cassettes to digital audiobooks. Its task was to define an international standard, to set up the conditions for the production exchange and use of audiobooks, and to organize the digitization of audiobooks worldwide. The DAISY standard is based on the DTB (Digital Talking Book) format, which allows the indexing of audiobooks with bookmarks for paragraphs, pages, and chapters, to make it easier to navigate through the books.
October 1996 > The @folio project, for a novel reading device
The @folio project is a reading device project conceived in October 1996 by Pierre Schweitzer, an architect-designer living in Strasbourg, France. It is meant to download and read any text and/or illustrations from the web or hard disk, in any format, with no proprietary format and no DRM (Digital Rights Management). The technology of @folio is novel and simple. It is inspired from fax and tab file folders. The flash memory is "printed" like Gutenberg printed his books. The facsimile mode is readable as is for any content, from sheet music to mathematical or chemical formulas, with no conversion necessary, whether it is handwritten text, calligraphy, free hand drawing or non- alphabetical writing. An international patent was filed in April 2001. The French start-up iCodex was created in July 2002 to promote and develop @folio.
1996 > A web version for the Ethnologue, a catalog of all living languages
Published by SIL International (SIL was initially known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics) since 1951, and freely available on the web since 1996, The Ethnologue: Languages of the World is an encyclopedic reference work cataloging all of the world's known living languages. As stated by Barbara Grimes, its editor from 1971 to 2000: "It is a catalog of the languages of the world, with information about where they are spoken, an estimate of the number of speakers, what language family they are in, alternate names, names of dialects, other socio- linguistic and demographic information, dates of published Bibles, a name index, a language family index, and language maps." Thousands of linguists have contributed to the Ethnologue worldwide. A new edition is published approximately every four years. The 16th edition was published in 2009, in print (for sale) and on the web (for free), with information on the 6,909 living languages of our planet.
1996 > Merriam-Webster Online
Merriam-Webster, a main publisher of English-language dictionaries, launched the website "Merriam-Webster Online: The Language Center" in 1996 to give free access to online resources stemming from its print publications: Webster Dictionary, Webster Thesaurus, Webster's Third (a lexical landmark), Guide to International Business Communications, Vocabulary Builder (with interactive vocabulary quizzes), and the Barnhart Dictionary Companion (hot new words). The goal of the website has also been to help track down definitions, spellings, pronunciations, synonyms, vocabulary exercises, and other key facts about words and language.