Coming Soon, The Google Translator

compuglot writes "Google gave journalists a glimpse of its next generation machine translation system at a May 19th Google Factory Tour. "Google Blogoscoped" offers an excellent overview of the presentation. The system has been trained using the United Nations Documents as a corpus. This corpus is some 20 billion words worth of content. It uses existing source and target language translations (done by human translators at the U.N.) to find patterns it then uses to build rules for translating between those languages. Apparently it was successful where the current version had failed in translating certain phrases. If anyone were capable of making a serious go of MT, that would have to be Google."

Comments

pl0s 5, Troll)

[Anonymous Coward]

One or 7he other

Re:Unsupported assertions

[gowen]

Why does expressing preference for critical thinking over mindless cheerleading always get moderated as "Flamebait"?

I didn't even say bad things about Google, only that the submitter was making unsupported (which is not the same as untrue) assertions.

Re:Needs a *bit* more work...

[grasshoppa]

You gotta be kidding me, this was modded as flame bait?

MODS: Wake the fuck up. THIS post can be considered flame bait ( watch, I'll be modded insightful or interesting ).

Re:Bubla *Cick BAle

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's a trap!"

Feh. That was easy...

Re:Needs a *bit* more work...

[eno2001]

Ahhh... but young grasshoppa!!! You forget. This is Slashdot where the masses of lonely and frustrated (sexually and otherwise) know-it-alls attempt to carve out a meager corner of the net in which they "rule". Take a step back and look at the big picture. How many times have you seen the gigantic flamewars that can be predictably started here on Slashdot by pointing out just a few basic topics. Here's an example:

1. Most people are terrible drivers. There is a lot of evidence to prove this including a recent studdy that shows that many people couldn't even pass the driving exam if they had to retake it. This is especially true of the younger 18-24 male demographic. They have this mistaken notion that "might makes right" and just because they have a bigger or faster vehicle, that they can do as they please on the roads. Speed limits? These people think that speed limits are a road hazard as are the people who follow them. Personally, I prefer to follow the rules of the road to a tee because they were created by people who know a thing or two about traffic. That means that I will go 55 MPH in a 55 zone and stay in the center or right lane depending on my needs. This means that these butt fucked morons have the ability to legally pass me on the left. But they insist on tail gating because they *think* they can make me go faster. What is that saying again? Misery loves company? Their driving records are probably so abyssmal and their insurance premiums so sky high that they want everyone else to be just like them. Sorry, but I'm happy following the law, keeping a clean driving record and paying reasonable insurance premiums due to my safe driver status.

Another topic that will bring the ire of these ignorant and lonely geeks is politics. Whooo boy, some of the flamefest that arise from these! Let's take the previous subject and link it with politics for a start:

2. You know what I've noticed? Every moronic driver on the road that insists on taligating me until he gets tired enough to swerve around me has a Bush/Cheney sticker or American flag sticker on his guzzlemobile. Why is that? I think it says a lot about the right-wing politics in this country. From what I can see, the neocon right is largely made of people who live in fear. They fear terrorism. They fear black people. They fear gays. They fear the tumbling of the U.S. into complete irrelevance on the world stage. Fear, fear, fear, fear ,fear. So they buy these big cars in order to "protect" themselves from their own inabilities to deal with the road properly. How many times have you seen Kerry stickers on SUVs and Hummers? Now compare that with the frequency of any of the myriad of Bush/Cheney or right-wing propaganda. Startling, isn't it? A political party completely built upon fear. They are willing to believe any lies fed to them by the right-wing media. If Fox says it, it MUST be true!!! Who's looking out for you!!!??

Then we have the subject of suits vs. techies. That's alway sgood for a laugh:

3. The PHBs who read this site have little hope of ever really "getting it" when it comes to technology. Sure, they throw around the right buzzwords and talk about "visions" and "mission statements", but what do they really do all day? Meanwhile the techies are running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to implement these lame "visions" using junk technology like Flash, Dream Weaver, or (god forbid) Access. The techies actually "get" technology. And if given the chance, they could make the world shine. But the suits come in wherever there is money to be made and stamp down the people who do the real work. They only follow the market trends that will apparently lead to the most profit no matter how technologically flawed they are. This business isn't about money folks! It's about technology and making life easier for EVERYONE. Until people get that, we're going to be stuck in thie quagmire vicious cycle of "visioneering" and fixing stale shit software