Windows Live

Windows Live Translator, No Longer Lost in Translation

Now in websites, on Live Search and via its own button

By Marius Oiaga, Technology News Editor

12th of November 2007, 11:04 GMT

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The growth of Windows Live Translator was an integer part of Microsoft's evolution of Windows Live into the next stage, as announced in the summer of this year. Aiming to blur the language barriers from online destinations, products and services and the end users, the still in Beta Windows Live Translator is designed not only as a web-based translation offering but as a piece of the Windows Live puzzle. In this context, Translator is not positioned solely as an alternative to Google Translate or to AltaVista's Babel Fish, but as an indispensable

component of Live Search and even an add-on expanding the browser's linguistic limitations.

With the introduction of the overhauled Live Search, Microsoft has also included the Translator as an optional page view with its search engine. Now Live Search permits the user not only to view the Cached page, but also to access directly the translated version of the website. Clicking the "Translate this page" option will open the site in Bilingual Viewer mode. In this sense, Live Search will be language sensitive, and will offer the result in accordance with the users' locale settings.

"Windows Live Translator Beta is now directly integrated in the newest version of Live Search. What does this mean? When a search result (i.e. web page) has been found in a language which is different than the user's language, and the Live Translator can translate from the web page's into the user's language, the search result is accompanied by a new link: "Translate this page"," revealed Vikram Dendi, Microsoft Senior Product Manager for Incubation Business Strategy.

On top of this, the Redmond company has also announced that the "Translate This" and "Translate My Page" functionality with Windows Live Translator are both live. This will permit web developers to embed a Translator widget into their websites permitting visitors to effortlessly access translated versions of the content. "Now on the Live Translator home page you will find a new link. "Add the web page Translator to your site". By clicking on this link you go to a page that offers snippets of code that can be added to individual web pages for which you wish to offer translations. The code generator will create the appropriate widget depending on the source language of your site," Dendi added.

Still, Microsoft has taken its implementation of Machine Translation technology even further under the Windows Live brand umbrella and is also delivering the The Toolbar Translator Button via Windows Live Gallery. "Your Windows Live Toolbar button will remember the last language you needed a translation for. [But] you can expand the little downward arrow next to the toolbar button: and choose which language selection you would like to see applied when the button is clicked. With this toolbar button, web page translations are literally only a mouse click away. It doesn't get much easier than that," promised Andrea Jessee, a Senior Program Manager with Microsoft Research Machine Translation Group.

TAGS:

Windows Live | Windows Live Translator | Windows Live Toolbar button

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