The Google-Microsoft battle wages on, as Microsoft released its Windows Live Translator in a beta testing stage. Similar to the established translators created by Babel Fish (owned by Altavista) and Google, Windows Live Translator simply takes text entered in one language and translates it to another.
The new translator service uses Systran machine translation. Systran is no rookie to the translation field, as it was established in 1968, and has worked with the United States Department of Defense and the European Commission. In addition to the Microsoft Translator, Systran also supplies translations for Yahoo, Babel Fish, and most of Google’s language tools.
Most everything appears similar to Google’s offering, but I did notice one great new feature. When translating an entire page, Windows Live Translator shows the original page and the new translated page side by side. This could potentially be very useful for anyone translating text or anyone learning a language. Microsoft didn’t stop with the side by side view though, adding some other views like top-bottom, hover, and hover original language. Users could find great new uses for these views. I could see this hover option proving very handy to students studying for language exams, and for translators proofing translations.
English – Spanish: Rev2 es el mejor Web site del mundo. Pienso que debo leerlo ocho veces cada dÃa.
English – German: Rev2 ist die beste Web site in der Welt. Ich denke, dass ich es achtmal lesen sollte jeden Tag.
English РItalian: Rev2 ̬ il migliore Web site nel mondo. Penso che dovrei leggerlo otto volte ogni giorno.
