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HBW alive (1 Viewer)

The video stated that the species' accounts will be available in different languages. It is already installed or is that a feature which is planned for the future?.
From the leaflet...
The new, internet-based translation technologies, conveniently integrated in each page of the site, allow the contents to reach people with little or no knowledge of English. Although the Google translations are not perfect, they are quickly improving and already available for 71 languages!
From About HBW Alive...
On top of this, the integration of the Google automatic translator in all of the pages of HBW Alive, producing reasonable versions of the English texts in 71 different languages, will bring the content closer to an important part of the world population with little or no knowledge of English.
 
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Hi Richard,

thanks for the explanation. Well, the Google translator is not the best. I use the translator often for Eng -> Ger translations of BLI accounts and it took very long until I have finished the translation.
 
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Well, the Google translator is the not best. I use the translator often for Eng -> Ger translations of BLI accounts and it took very long until I have finished the translation.
Yes, I use Google Translate regularly. Unsurprisingly, its efforts to cope with specialist ornithological terminology are often rather comical!
 
As far as I see it's only in English now.
The Google Translate facility is on the left-hand side, below the taxonomic tree (somehow I missed it earlier!). I can't comment on the quality of the translation, but it works impressively quickly.

It's quite fun to read the family and species accounts in Latin. ;)
 
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The Descriptive notes for some species now include notes on the morphological differences between the subspecies (see Ostrich, for a start), which were not in the books (at least for the earlier volumes). I don't think this has been attempted before across all species?

It is pretty impressive, but I echo concerns mentioned earlier about the responsiveness, and a rather clunky feel - use of lots of clicks to different pages, rather than scrolling. And it would have been helpful if the base maps included more than just coast and major rivers - national boundaries, for example.

Keith
 
The Google Translate facility is on the left-hand side, below the taxonomic tree (somehow I missed it earlier!). I can't comment on the quality of the translation, but it works impressively quickly.

It's quite fun to read the family and species accounts in Latin. ;)

And it's a lot of fun to read it in German, too. Breeding = Zucht! However, the species account is understandable...

André
 
Just posted on Facebook:

"HBW Alive is now ONLINE!
Get the contents of the Handbook of the Birds of the World Series and much more at www.hbw.com!
Watch the video to discover all the amazing possibilities of HBW Alive.
The registration fee is FREE for our facebook friends. Just use the discount code: FBLYNX"

Keith
 
The registration fee is FREE for our facebook friends. Just use the discount code: FBLYNX"
When I subscribed to supporting membership last Thursday, I was charged the 20 € registration fee. But the next day, Lynx refunded it, explaining that they would shortly be announcing a free registration offer.
 
Gradually working my way through the updated species log. Incidentally, this might be easier to consult if it was presented as a scrollable rather than paged list. Already there are 41 pages (50 updates/page), which makes it extremely tedious to step though to (say) page 20 – and this will only get worse with further updates...
However, as I mentioned before, some species updates are limited to the insertion of multimedia links, making it quite hard work to track down the significant species updates. It would be really, really useful if there were update codes associated with each species, allowing potentially interesting updates to be quickly located, eg:
  • T = taxonomic revision: generic reassignment, split/lump, or change to recognised sspp (probably n/a at this stage, pending availability of definitive checklist)
  • X = account expanded with extra detail
  • M = multimedia links inserted
The update code (and date of last update) should be displayed alongside the species name: in the taxonomic tree, in the updated species log, in species search results, and in the species accounts themselves. (If 'TXM yyyy/mm' is considered too unwieldy, perhaps there could be a single (expandable) 'updated' symbol instead.)

Richard,
Perhaps too obvious a question, but are you passing on this constructive criticism a little more directly? I do hope so!
MJB
 
Perhaps too obvious a question, but are you passing on this constructive criticism a little more directly? I do hope so!
Not yet, Mike. But at least one member of the current editorial team is a regular visitor to this forum...

When I've used HBW Alive enough to have formed a considered opinion on its strengths and weaknesses (as opposed to quick and sometimes misguided first impressions), I might send Lynx some more structured comments. In the meantime I was just hoping to stimulate BF members to collectively explore its capabilities and provide additional feedback.

[Btw, the 'Latest updated species' log does what it says on the tin (which is fair enough!) - it's evidently a FIFO list of updates posted in the last two months (or 60 days?). So sadly there doesn't seem to be a complete list of species updates, eg as per BNA Online.]
 
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Subscribed today. From the first browsing I must say It is a great supplement to the print issue. For those who haven't the print issues of the HBW it is a cheap alternative though the subscription period is for one year. To speak about me I haven't HBW 6, 7 and 8 (and New Species). Very interesting are the accounts of the new species (which are not included in HBW 1 to 16). Most new species described from 1997 to 2013 are included and will be also described in the HBW New Species print issue (hopefully). But it is also interesting to see that some of these species, e.g. Hocking's Parakeet and Madeira Parakeet are not accepted by the SACC. Also interesting are the updates, e.g. Chestnut-eared Laughingthrush initially described as Garrulax konkakinhensis is find under Ianthocincla konkakinhensis.
 
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Latest news on species

When I subscribed last week, it was evident that the 'Latest news' feature had been trialled between December and March but had since been inactive. But yesterday it came 'Alive' with the posting of four news items from recent months (including the taxonomic news concerning Anhinga melanogaster, Ptilopachinae and Orthotomus chaktomuk). Hopefully the start of a regular and potentially useful news stream (and not just yet another occasional random selection of miscellaneous titbits, as on many other websites)...
 
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Is this just the case of the first bird I checked or do maps generally not have political boundaries? I would prefer to see these.

Niels
 
Maps

Is this just the case of the first bird I checked or do maps generally not have political boundaries? I would prefer to see these.
I agree, Niels. It's been that way since the inception of HBW. I recently commented on the Bird Taxonomy and Nomenclature forum...
Incidentally, the distribution mapping is one of the weaker features of HBW. Many maps are quite difficult to interpret meaningfully, given that no political/administrative boundaries or gridlines are depicted (only coastlines and major lakes/rivers are shown). And the ranges of species with limited distributions are often presented on unnecessarily small-scale maps.
It would be a significant enhancement if political boundaries and/or gridlines could eventually be added to the maps within HBW Alive (especially now that a double-click expands the maps to a size that would easily allow the presentation of much more geographic detail).
 
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It would be a significant enhancement if political boundaries and/or gridlines could eventually be added to the maps within HBW Alive (especially now that a double-click expands the maps to a size that would easily allow the presentation of much more geographic detail).

Richard,
Especially if one works on maintaining occurrence lists for remote areas of the world....
MJB
 
It would be a significant enhancement if political boundaries and/or gridlines could eventually be added to the maps within HBW Alive (especially now that a double-click expands the maps to a size that would easily allow the presentation of much more geographic detail).

I think this is coming, check out the example on page 3 of the leaflet (scroll down), plus comments from Anna Motis on page 6.
 
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