Windows Live Translator

The Google-Microsoft battle is now one step ahead with the addition of new service called Windows Live Translator Beta, into the managed beta testing of Windows Live Suite. The service is very similar to Google Translate and Yahoo’s Babelfish (developed by Altavista in nineties).

Windows Live Translator is powered by a French company called Systran which also provides the technology for Yahoo’s Babelfish and most of language combinations offered by Google Translate.

The Windows Live Translation Service takes bits of text and translates it from or into any of twelve languages. Entire web pages can also be translated by entering the URL.

Windows Live Translator’s presentation is very interesting with four different views for the translated URL:

• Side By Side ( Default View)
• Top – Bottom
• Original text with hover translation
• Translated text with hover original text

Default view shows the original page and the translation side by side in two vertical frames. If you hover over a sentence in one of the pages, the sentence is highlighted in both pages. If you scroll in one of the pages, the other page performs the same action (doesn’t work in Firefox).