Folium: The Inner Workings of Google Translate via Engadget.com

Posted by LEAF Architect on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 · Leave a Comment

Google gives us some insight on the inner workings of Google Translate via Engadget

You darn kids with your iPods and your Facebooks and the Twitters … All this technology doesn’t grow on trees y’know!

Did you know that Google can translate stuff? And that they’re pretty darned good at it too! In fact, Google translation services are considered one of the best computer-aided translation programs on the planet. And it’s free!

Google Translate

As a professor, I’m sure you would think that I’m all against this computer-aided translation movement. Machines taking away the “human” aspect of interpersonal communication and whatnot. However, I’m thrilled to see this research moving forward. Google translate has effectively replaced my dusty old dictionaries, and the Google translate app on my iPhone translates my own voice into dozens of different languages on the go! Anything that tears down the walls of communication and brings us closer together is a good thing in my book!

The fear that technology will replace the job of humans is an old one, since the first days of modern electronics. But here we are living in the middle of the greatest tech movement known to man, and we see how technology has actually required more effort from man in order to maintain and advance current systems. This article from Engadget gives us a human view behind the Google machine. Behind the web page are hundreds, if not thousands of people working diligently to make this technology work for you!

I’d never depend on Google translate to correctly phrase entire literary works, but we get closer every day, and I want to be part of that! Read how Google translate works!

Have you ever used Google Translate before? What do you think? Talk amongst yourselves below!