Smart.fm recently had a major update, completely reshaping itself and coming with a few extra little goodies to make your experience of learning Japanese even better, and even a few little goodies that just make it even funner and look nicer!

For those who have no idea in the world what smart.fm is (even though you should), they made this video that explains exactly what they’re all about. This video even goes further to explain how the mind works in retaining knowledge, and how to optimize your study habits and how to learn. But the main point of this post is to let you know about the update, a couple days ago smart.fm went down for a total of 24 hours and this is what I first noticed when smart.fm came back up.

Home

At first sight you will see it has been completely rearranged but everything is still there plus more….

#1. Your newly named “Goals”

#2. Goals you may like

#3. A very good looking picture or photo of yourself^^

#4. A few stats about what you’re learning and what you’ve done

#5. A personal favorite, a facebook style “What’s happening?” area for you to let your followers know how well you are studying.

Learning

Let’s move onto what they’ve changed in how you learn. Go and click on any Goal and you go to that page, go click on “start” and you will get a drop-down menu with a buffet of learning applications to entice you. They still have the classic iKnow for those who don’t want to give it up, but in the update they added their applications, Embedded and Fullscreen which I assume is of their own concoction. These applications teach you at exactly the same level as iKnow, but you don’t have to open up another window to study now, you can do it right there on the same page, which is a big plus. There’s also BrainSpeed and Dictation (not pictured) so you still get the same learning experience. The Embedded and Fullscreen application than continue as normal, but with different colors *yay!*

iPhone Application

To coincide with the update, smart.fm released their first official iPhone/iPod Touch application! It has absolutely everything you will find on smart.fm so you can study while on-the-go. It’s the perfect way to catch up on your study while out doing other things, so how much does this cost? it cost’s zip, that’s right nothing! So go and get it here, I might do a more detailed review in a later post.

Conclusion

The update was incredibly recent so obviously some things still aren’t running, and there’s still a lot of bugs to fix, but I am astonished at the change that took place over that 24 hour period (you can see every detail here). There’s now more ways to socialize with other smart.fm users, ways to learn, and even a way of studying that you can take wherever you go. Don’t forget that stuff that’s still there, the algorithm that keeps perfect record of what and when to study, the ability to keep track yourself of your learning experience and the utilities to make your own goals for yourself and others. smart.fm truly is the world’s sharpest learning tool.

Edit: This article is entered into a great competition held by NihongoUp concerning their Japanese Learning Resources page which you should check out.