Dawning of the universal translator

[shockie]

google is starting to use its own in-house translation algorithms that are "apply statistical learning techniques to build a translation model." in other words, rather than using a set of complex language rules for each language like conventional electronic translators, google translate will learn to translate through examples.

google translate faq: http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/faq_translation.html

 

[RWAC]

Check out MEPS developed in the 1980's for a major international publishing corporation.

Multi Electronic Programming System.

Has been around for donkey's years.

 

[shockie]

all i can find about meps is that it was developed by jehovah's witnesses.

can you explain how the meps system translates and the theory behind it?

 

[RWAC]

You are quite correct in that it was developed by that ruddy outfit yes. Don't get me on the subject of religion and especially those guys.

They developed it for their two peddling magazines, the Watchtower and Awake! magazines which required silmultaneous translation every two weeks into over 168 languages worldwide at the time. That is the theory behind it's development.

How it works, goodness knows, load of blinkin gobbbledegook anyway.

I do understand they sold off the rights to the program sometime in the late 1980's but where it ended up, I have no idea.

Hope this helps.

 

[shockie]

thanks for sharing. i'm guessing that meps, as with most other translating software out there operates differently than google translate does.

if google translate continues to further develop in the direction that they're going, they can potentially learn new languages and translate on the fly, which will become useful if/when we meet aliens. :talk:

 

[neroux]

thanks for sharing. i'm guessing that meps, as with most other translating software out there operates differently than google translate does.

if google translate continues to further develop in the direction that they're going, they can potentially learn new languages and translate on the fly, which will become useful if/when we meet aliens. :talk:

Not to bash Google (especially as no one seems yet to know how it works) but as automatic translation has always been a rather difficult task I'd doubt Google has now found the perfect way to translate like manual translations.

 

[BrandonG]

Google's turning into a real person now. Soon he'll(or she'll) rise up the ranks to become world emperor(Actually I just googled that to make sure I spelt it right!)?

 

[shockie]

Not to bash Google (especially as no one seems yet to know how it works) but as automatic translation has always been a rather difficult task I'd doubt Google has now found the perfect way to translate like manual translations.

oh it's a difficult task to be sure, but what's different (and novel afaik) is its approach in the translations and the adaptive capabilities.

 

[htmlindex]

Google's turning into a real person now. Soon he'll(or she'll) rise up the ranks to become world emperor(Actually I just googled that to make sure I spelt it right!)?

Google's not a going to be a real person. Google's the God of the internet!

 

[tritrain]

It really speaks to the Star Trek geek in all of us.

Google really is trying to be global. It makes sense to have a translation service.

 

[bizwiz]

That would be so cool if it was actually released.

 

[Dan]

I always use the Spanish->English conversion tool for help with my school homework. Works good enough to at least give me some understanding of what it's supposed to say.