Google Seeks To Provide The Best Translation Service
Among other things, Google now provides one of the largest online translation services, handling 52 languages and servicing hundreds of millions of queries every week.
Although its translation services are not perfect, the New York Times reports that Google is rapidly improving the service. In 2004, Sergey Brin received an email from a Google fan in South Korea. Running it through the translation software, the message which was supposed to show the fan’s support of Google read “The sliced raw fish shoes it wishes. Google green onion thing!” Since then Google have been on a mission to improve this service.
The NY times recently ran a comparison of Google Translate, Babel Fish and Microsoft’s Bing Translator. Although none of these services can compare to a human translation, in all of the separate translations; French, Spanish, Russian, German and Arabic, Google Translate offers the most accurate translation of the text.
Although the basic translation service (text to text, or webpage translation) is not perfected yet, Google is advancing the technology, using image to text translation. Basically, this service would allow someone on holidays to take a photo of a menu, directions or anything else they need a translation of, upload it to the web and get an instant translation.
Translation websites are nothing new, in fact programmers have been building such devices for decades. What makes current programs different however – Google being a classic example – is that the new software is designed to make statistical guesses rather than following a set of rules. For example, after reading thousands of passages of accurately translated text, the software is able to statistically work out accurate translations rather than simply following a set of language rules.
Source: www.bigmouthmedia.com