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Google Translate adds Cambodia’s Khmer as its 66th language
DigitalGoogle has announced Khmer, the official language of Cambodia, as the 66th language supported by Google Translate. There are an estimated 16 million native speakers of Khmer, mainly concentrated in Cambodia. Apple added Khmer support to OS X Lion back in 2011. Google Translate now comes with its own Khmer virtual keyboard and support for [...]
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Chinese translator app Waygo helps travelers avoid dining disasters abroad
DigitalAs anyone who has ever studied Chinese knows, it’s an onerous language to learn–especially on an empty stomach. That’s where Waygo comes in. The translation iOS app makes life easier for travelers by using optical character recognition to read menu items written in Chinese characters. For a demonstration of how it works, watch Waygo’s video below: [...]
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Orlando dispatches airport translators to cater to growing number of international visitors
TransportThey come in waves, in small groups or alone, the common denominator being the quizzical looks on their faces. Wandering about cavernous Orlando International Airport with everything from overstuffed backpacks to kids in tow, they typically are unable to speak or read English. Enter OIA’s ambassador program, a group of 16 people who speak 11 different [...]
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4 translation apps are the talk of the town
DigitalGoogle Translate offers translation services for more than 60 languages, both speech recognition and text. The best part is it works and it’s FREE. Each translation Google Translate provides includes a written phonetic translation in addition to the audio recording. I found phonetic translation is key for translation apps. You’d think that would be a [...]
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Duolingo announces $15 million funding round led by Union Square Ventures and NEA
DigitalThe startup Duolingo has found a way to make free foreign language learning profitable. Venir otra vez? The company, which counts Ashton Kutcher and four-hour obsessive Tim Ferriss among its backers, is doing it, in part, by enlisting new language learners to translate the web. It’s an approach that investors clearly like: The Pittsburgh-based startup [...]
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Finnish startup Transfluent raises $1 million for social media translations
DigitalFully-automated online translation is one of the oldest cloud-based services out there (I’m thinking Babelfish in the late Nineties), but nonetheless it remains one of the most obviously incomplete. One particularly interesting company in this space is Transfluent, which is applying a similar model to social media, websites and smartphone apps… The company, which has 15,000 [...]
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Video: UK developer creates glasses for real-time translations
DigitalInspired by Project Glass, Will Powell rigged Vuzix 1200 Star glasses to translate a foreign language and provide subtitles for the wearer. This technology is able to break down language barriers, enabling the wearer to have a real-time conversation with someone speaking a language they are unfamiliar with. Powell used two Raspberry Pi machines running [...]
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Verbalizeit will connect travelers to translators with the click of a button
DigitalVerbalizeit, a startup service connecting human translators to travelers and businesses with one phone call, announced an iPhone app, two new business partners, and five new team members at last week’s TechStars Demo Day in Boulder, Colorado. When the company entered the startup accelerator earlier this summer, they were a bootstrapped team of two. The [...]
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Updated Google Translate app now reads text taken from photos
DigitalLooks like there’s a big update for the Google Translate Android app going out this morning. The big addition in the new version 2.5 is the ability to translate parts of images using your phone’s rear-facing camera. This feature can be used by tapping the camera icon, tapping the screen to take a picture, then [...]
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Learn a language while helping to build a translation engine
DigitalLuis von Ahn, the crowdsourcing pioneer who developed reCAPTCHA, has come up with the perfect crowdsourcing project. His new company Duolingo aims teaches people how to speak languages by reading, writing, speaking and listening to translations of Web content. The byproduct of that activity, if all goes well, will be a fast and accurate human-powered [...]
