5 ms·

After Babel Fish: The promise of cheap translations at the speed of the Web

70 points by miqkt 1y ago

bananaflag 1y ago
> Google Translate (launched in 2006) You know, Google has Orwellian-retconned the fact that Translate was available in 2004 (based on my memory and Internet Archive), no idea why. I remember using it in December 2004 to translate winhistory.de.
- jazzypants 1y ago
  Yeah, you seem to remember correctly. Apparently, it just didn't reached its "public beta" until 2006 so that's when they date it's beginning. https://translatepress.com/history-of-google-translate/ https://translatepress.com/history-of-google-translate/
- ghaff 1y ago
  I’m guessing it may have been available in 2004 in some form but the official launch seems to been in 2006 so the quote seems accurate.
- duggelz 1y ago
  Technically true but misleading. translate.google.com was launched in beta in 2001. But it took until 2005ish to convince Larry and Sergey that "Google Translate" was a better name than "translate.google.com". They had a lot of strong ideas about branding but never did think of a better name. Source: I wrote translate.google.com starting in 2000. Sergey told me it would take "a couple months" when I was hired. Also the Wayback machine shows a version from August 2002 so you don't have to trust a rando on the internet. I entirely agree that it wasn't any good until I handed it off to people who actually knew what they were doing.
  - 101008 1y ago
    Wow, I'd love to read your stories from that time, writing Google Translate from the ground.
whoisthemachine 1y ago
> “The poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.” This Douglas Adams quote could also apply to the internet writ large
- iancmceachern 1y ago
  There are so many little nuggets like this in Hitchhiker's. It's why it's one of those pieces of art you can go back to time and again.
- FridayoLeary 1y ago
  On a similar note i heard someone say it's lucky they need so many translators at the UN otherwise they might actually get things done!
- squigz 1y ago
  Can you elaborate on your position? To me the opposite is far more obvious: the Internet has enabled people from all over the world to meet, learn from each other, become friends. "The Russians/Chinese/whatever" are no longer just a faceless group of people who are trying to take over the world - they're the person you worked with a few years ago, the friend you've played games with for years, the open source developer you've been collaborating with.
  - danielbln 1y ago
    That's certainly one facet of the Internet. Another is the Internet being a tool for nation state actors and grifters to undermine, lead astray and pit against each other large parts of the population, plus its uncanny ability to give rise and reach to the most abstruse ideas like anti vax and flat earth and alt right and incels and Q anon and all that (which usually circles back to aforementioned actors using it as a tool to further their interests).
    - squigz 1y ago
lukax 1y ago
Soniox offers real-time speech-to-text with real-time translation between 60+ languages (mostly to/from English with some additional pairs between more popular languages). It operates with minimal amount of context and produces the translated text as soon as possible. https://soniox.com/ https://soniox.com/ Disclaimer: I used to work for Soniox
mikejulietbravo 1y ago
nuances like idioms can and will be solved. wispr flow is already solving a lot of these things via their speech-to-text interface. as better models are introduced, figurative language, implication, cultural nuancec etc. becomes easier to reconcile.
Sophira 1y ago
https://www.rightreading.com/blog/language/translation/google-translate-no-longer-using-systran-software-goes-head-to-head-with-yahoos-babelfish/ https://www.rightreading.com/blog/language/translation/googl... is an interesting blog post from the time (October 2007) which compares Babelfish (by that point owned by Yahoo!) and Google Translate.

70 points by miqkt 1y ago

> Google Translate (launched in 2006) You know, Google has Orwellian-retconned the fact that Translate was available in 2004 (based on my memory and Internet Archive), no idea why. I remember using it in December 2004 to translate winhistory.de.

jazzypants 1y ago
Yeah, you seem to remember correctly. Apparently, it just didn't reached its "public beta" until 2006 so that's when they date it's beginning. https://translatepress.com/history-of-google-translate/ https://translatepress.com/history-of-google-translate/
ghaff 1y ago
I’m guessing it may have been available in 2004 in some form but the official launch seems to been in 2006 so the quote seems accurate.
duggelz 1y ago
Technically true but misleading. translate.google.com was launched in beta in 2001. But it took until 2005ish to convince Larry and Sergey that "Google Translate" was a better name than "translate.google.com". They had a lot of strong ideas about branding but never did think of a better name. Source: I wrote translate.google.com starting in 2000. Sergey told me it would take "a couple months" when I was hired. Also the Wayback machine shows a version from August 2002 so you don't have to trust a rando on the internet. I entirely agree that it wasn't any good until I handed it off to people who actually knew what they were doing.
- 101008 1y ago
  Wow, I'd love to read your stories from that time, writing Google Translate from the ground.

whoisthemachine 1y ago

> “The poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.” This Douglas Adams quote could also apply to the internet writ large

iancmceachern 1y ago
There are so many little nuggets like this in Hitchhiker's. It's why it's one of those pieces of art you can go back to time and again.
FridayoLeary 1y ago
On a similar note i heard someone say it's lucky they need so many translators at the UN otherwise they might actually get things done!
squigz 1y ago
Can you elaborate on your position? To me the opposite is far more obvious: the Internet has enabled people from all over the world to meet, learn from each other, become friends. "The Russians/Chinese/whatever" are no longer just a faceless group of people who are trying to take over the world - they're the person you worked with a few years ago, the friend you've played games with for years, the open source developer you've been collaborating with.
- danielbln 1y ago
  That's certainly one facet of the Internet. Another is the Internet being a tool for nation state actors and grifters to undermine, lead astray and pit against each other large parts of the population, plus its uncanny ability to give rise and reach to the most abstruse ideas like anti vax and flat earth and alt right and incels and Q anon and all that (which usually circles back to aforementioned actors using it as a tool to further their interests).
  - squigz 1y ago

lukax 1y ago

Soniox offers real-time speech-to-text with real-time translation between 60+ languages (mostly to/from English with some additional pairs between more popular languages). It operates with minimal amount of context and produces the translated text as soon as possible. https://soniox.com/ https://soniox.com/ Disclaimer: I used to work for Soniox

mikejulietbravo 1y ago

nuances like idioms can and will be solved. wispr flow is already solving a lot of these things via their speech-to-text interface. as better models are introduced, figurative language, implication, cultural nuancec etc. becomes easier to reconcile.

Sophira 1y ago

https://www.rightreading.com/blog/language/translation/google-translate-no-longer-using-systran-software-goes-head-to-head-with-yahoos-babelfish/ https://www.rightreading.com/blog/language/translation/googl... is an interesting blog post from the time (October 2007) which compares Babelfish (by that point owned by Yahoo!) and Google Translate.