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Google Deprecates Translation API
An anonymous reader writes "Google is to close down its popular Translate application programming interface — along with a host of others — by the end of the year, owing to what it claims is 'extensive abuse' by users of the service, but has thus far declined to provide details or a sensible alternative for users of the API."
How the hell can you abuse a translating service ? To rickroll people of different cultures ?
not profitable.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
My guess is they haven't figured out how to include ads into the translation services. It may have led to some interesting translations if they did.
Then use Apertium, they also provide an API
Thats what TFA calls google. Not search giant.
Performing an English -> English translation essentially creates an open proxy. I imagine that accounts for some of the abuse.
that relying on others for anything, ever, is going to come back and bite you in the ass later. Be it cloud, public api, or anything that somebody else controls.
Well I guess gTranslate won't work on my N900 anymore. Can't they stick to limiting API requests?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Somewhat misleading. Read Google's actual comments: http://www.google.com/webelements/#!/translate
"For website translations, we encourage you to use the Google Translate Element."
http://www.google.com/webelements/#!/translate
So its not really gone, just a new way to use it.
I just couldn't stop translating swears.
"Translation Party" was awesome, and it led me to figure out how to use translation tools reasonably effectively to communicate to people with whom I don't share a common language.
(Keep re-wording one's English form until it survives a round-trip intact. Won't necessarily work for some languages, but it seemed to produce good results)
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
WTF? Google Translation API != Google Translate. This only matters to programmers / 3rd-party services.
Can't they stick to limiting API requests?
Exactly what I was thinking. It says they are doing that now already though.
the number of requests you may make per day will be limited and the API will be shut off completely on December 1, 2011
Reply to That ||
Honestly I'm having a hard time trusting Google these days as a developer. They have a nasty habit of putting out half-baked stuff, and yanking other, useful stuff without much notice. Like this.
I don't know that I want to keep following their stuff when they're so damn unreliable about it.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Not even getting a sensible alternative to a discontinued free service that has obviously become their right. /sarcasm
Using Google's, or anyone's, translation app to translate copyrighted material, or to provide auto-translation capability that would allow anyone to do so would be the most likely, and potentially most expensive, abuse worrying Google.
Google is already caught up in some copyright wars and so is aware of and sensitive to potentially expensive problems arising from their having supplied an app and that making them potentially liability as facilitator for being the app supplier.
The situations some torrent service providers are experiencing now, being sued and such, is likely providing basis for some of the paranoia.
christ, why google?
you're willing to drop coin on free browsers and free email, but not translation services? you don't see any leverage here? really?
how boneheaded
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What they're doing with search APIs is instructive. Google closed down their SOAP search API years ago. They've deprecated their "AJAX search API" as well; that has two years of life left. There's still a search API for searching your own site: "Google Custom Search". But there's no API for searching other sites.
Translation is getting the same treatment. Translation will be available for your own site, but there will be no API for using it generally.
You can see where this is going. Any Google API which offers a generally useful service that's not tied to an ad-supported Google property will probably go away.
More to the point:
but has thus far declined to provide details or a sensible alternative for users of the API
Just because they used to offer a free service, and will soon stop doing so, people aren't just offended at that but are also attacking them for not recommending a competitive service? Again, all with absolutely no compensation?
I know they're doing well, but that doesn't mean we (as a society) should start assuming that they owe us.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Yeah who do they think they are, not giving you everything you want for free?
Just make it a paid service. there are A LOT of websites and outfits desperately need such a service. if you dont do it, someone else will. better you at this point.
Read radical news here
Free, as in beer?
or Free, as in time?
They are getting paid for my attention, and I am not. That's not "free". The cost of thing they give me is their payment for my attention, and yet it can not be worth what my attention is worth. So I'm still out something uncompensated.
Wonder if it was used in some way for spam generation or captcha negation.
The Google Translation API and the quality of their results are incredibly good for machine translation. I would like to pay something reasonable to use the service commercially, but they don't allow you. Like a pennies per get request, or x dollars/mo for n# requests.
I don't understand for-profit companies that won't take your money.
Seriously. I had just written the automatic string internationalizer last month for a new language & IDE (to be released as FLOSS). You set your locale/language, and the locales/languages you want to support, then as you are coding you can enter a string followed by an 'I' -- then the IDE will automatically build the language table section of the code for you, and depending on the chosen language of the other readers and/or coders they will see the correct text in their language. eg:
greet' = "Good Morning \_. What would you like to do today?"I;
d' = 'Dialog(DLG_MESG);
d.say( interp( greet, user ) );
Behind the scenes (well, at the top of the file, actually ) the language strings get translated and replaced with something like an enum.
__INTL_Good_Morning = core.unique();
core.intlStr( __INTL_Good_Morning, "en", "Good Morning \_. What would you like to do today?" );
core.intlStr( __INTL_Good_Morning, "sp", "Buenos días \_. Qué te gustaría hacer hoy?" );
greet' = core.intlStr( __INTL_Good_Morning );
d' = 'Dialog(DLG_MESG);
d.say( interp( greet, user ) );
greet' = core.intlStr( "Buenos días \_. Qué te gustaría hacer hoy?"I );
(This is an example, the string tables would contain more languages and can also be exported to a module -- something like a header file + .so)
Each coder is required to input their own API key, and the plugin for translations allows different services to be used.
I was even adding support for variable name translations -- the operators and built in functions, keywords & library names can already be changed when the coder selects a different language pack (with or without IDE).
The language supports full unicode all the way thu the compiler, so variable names don't have to end up like abc_uXXXX_uXXXX_uXXXX as in most C/C++ compilers that support unicode.
Additionally, as the compiler encounters strings that have yet to be internationalized, it can perform the (compile time) translation -- or default to the same known string for every language (emitting a warning) -- Manual Improvements to the translations can also be made (provided that someone knows the target language).
Basically, I wanted to factor out the programmer's native (spoken) language via the token abstraction layer, and enable truly globally collaborative software projects (in your native tongue). I won't be able to without a good translator service + API :-(
FYI, at first the summary had me thinking that "a host of others" meant that other translation platforms would be closing too, but instead it means that Google's other APIs are being terminated.
From TFA:
Yeah, I might be one of the folks that enables users to "abuse" the translation service -- but results are cached, and isn't international collaboration what the translator service is for?! -- I wonder how much this will affect the twangdgtk folks -- I guess we'll have to fall back to just www.freetranslation.com?
I'm actually using the API for a purpose for which I believe it was intended. People who send me messages on my site get the message filtered through the API and if it's in a language other than English, it automatically translates it to English so 1. I can understand it without manually copy/pasting it into Google Translate, 2. cusswords and other abusive language will get translated into English prior to being run through my abuse filter, and 3. it's just awesome to see your messages automatically translated... at least I think so. It's all realtime, and the results are immediately available as part of the web experience. Now, since this is going away, I'm going to need something that can provide the same service... OR I'd even be willing to pay a small fee for such capability if necessary.
I'm still wondering what happened to prompt this, and why they haven't taken other measures to curb the abuse while still allowing legitimate use of it to continue. It doesn't even require the use of keys, like maps does. I sure hope they don't start restricting that service as well.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
There is an academic statistical machine translation system: http://demo.statmt.org/index.php This is open source. Help improve it!
You set your locale/language, and the locales/languages you want to support, then as you are coding you can enter a string followed by an 'I'
Sounds like gettext so far. But:
the plugin for translations allows different services to be used.
At this point, I've never seen a translator that produces results substantially better than Engrish.
Well, given that they have an alternate way to use their service (their translate element), how long do you think it's going to take someone to wrap that in a externally accessible api, that opens the code, and clicks the button for us, then processes the resulting text. Screen scraping has been around for a long, long time.
These APIs are now deprecated but have no scheduled shutdown date:
These APIs will be shut down as per their deprecation policies:
(via http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2011/05/spring-cleaning-for-some-of-our-apis.html)
I use Google Translate on my personal web site for free low quality translations. :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
How is this not solved by adding a flood filter? If the number of requests from a single source exceed a set amount them cut them off. I am using this now in tandem with a couchdb server that stores the results for caching and it works great. I would not mind them adding a way to limit requests per second because I only ask once for a translation of any text.
Join the Facebook action group!
"Don't Shut Down Google Translate API"
Link: http://bit.ly/mRzwcU
PS. Maybe Micro$oft can buy out Google Translate API, since Google doesn't seem to deal with it.
what a shame several people invested our time to build a useful maven plugin using the translate API. http://code.google.com/p/google-api-translate-java-maven-plugin/ google should offer a commitment when it publishes an API that way we can decide upfront if we want to risk our free time
You mean like the automatic translation of Android app descriptions in the Android Market (done, horribly badly, by Google)? I want my app descriptions in English, not in some horrible literal translation to a language Translate can't handle. Even worse is the translation of web pages going through up to three different translations (ie Hakku Chinese -> Mandarin -> English -> Swedish, or Nynorsk -> Bokmål -> English -> Dutch).
Facebook: Don't Shut Down Google Translate API
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dont-Shut-Down-Google-Translate-API/173456212712211
They have a nasty habit of putting out half-baked stuff, and yanking other, useful stuff without much notice. Like this.
by the end of the year is I reckon enough notice