Microsoft marches onwards…
Maybe it would have been more appropriate to entitle this blog “Microsoft marches onwards toward world domination”, for with news of the release of Microsoft’s live translation tool and it’s incorporation as a standard utility within Microsoft Office, there can surely be nothing that Microsoft cannot or does not eventually wish to take up and incorporate into its ubiquitous operating system and programs.
The Microsoft Research Machine Translation Team (MSR- MT) has just handed the codes for their translation tool over to the team responsible for coding Microsoft Office and as soon as they have completed the integration, the Live Translator will be instantly available to all owners of Microsoft Office 2007 as Windows Live Update.
As you might intuitively expect you will find the Translator within the ‘Research’ task pane within the toolbar and by all indications, the translation function is quick and easy to use. The language translation combinations currently on offer are: English to/from Chinese (Simplified & Traditional), French, German, Italian, Arabic, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian) and Spanish.
I’m sure that I won’t be the only one awaiting the live update so that I can give the tool a thorough testing!