As we predicted in our 2006 report on machine translation, Google has opened its MT engine to general usage — but with no software license or other fees. Acknowledging that automated translation right now is all about eyeballs, Google made its newly documented AJAX Language API for Translation and Language Detection beta release free to anyone who decides to call it. By the way, we would have put “language detection” first in the API’s name, but Google knows a bit more about SEO than we do.

As the name implies, you can use this application programming interface to detect language blocks in a text and translate them. Translation requests go to Google’s pretty good statistical MT engine (SMT). The API supports 29 language pairs (13 languages in total), including the usual E-FIGS and CCJK plus French<>German without involving English as the pivot language. Translation services are what Google generates without the option for training the SMT engine on your particular lexicon. Nonetheless, Google translations have proven to be very intelligible in the mash-ups that we have done or observed.

Google says that its language API is simple and easy to use — versus an arcane call-level interface: It requires an input string to translate, the names of the source and target languages, and a callback function. We put that claim to the test with a short program that threw increasingly larger strings at the interface. We can attest that it is easy to use for short strings. We did notice a couple of restrictions in our sandbox (N.B. Common Sense Advisory Labs did not conduct exhaustive tests on the API — rather, we ran tests until we got bored with the permutations):

• Strings. The API maxes out at around 1,200 characters per source string of plain text (figure on 100-120 words). While that’s good for including Google’s MT in your average application, it won’t help the average language service provider intent on pre-translating big files.
• Files and URLs. If you want to translate files, set them up as HTML pages hanging off a website and type the URL into Google’s website translator. That worked for web pages and shorter documents, but choked on the unexpurgated HTML version of “Business Without Borders” (a mere 122,000 words, give or take a couple hundred). We also tried translating the 19,000 words of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense pamphlet into Japanese and Russian. Google translates the first 5,300 words, but leaves the rest of the page in English.

Google’s AJAX Language API page promises future enhancements. We expect longer strings, named files, and longer documents to be part of future releases. What’s less likely in free Google MT are commercial features such as lexical tuning by company, industry-specific glossaries, or the feedback loop available since 2005 in Language Weaver (although Google does have a generalized “train the engine” function).

• For information consumers and seekers of truth in languages other than their own, these advances will be good news. Higher quality, free machine translation utilities will lead to MT popping up in more and more applications.
• For translators who don’t own translation memory software, we think that Google remains a great candidate for offering a gmail-like translation environment, replete with MT.
• Smart LSPs should seriously consider preprocessing small projects through the Google engine and — depending on the output — decide whether it is worth post-editing or fully translating the text. After all, they really don’t have anything to lose and could increase the productivity of their translators.
• Competing MT engines will need to move fast to stay ahead of the ad-funded portal. This API will make life difficult for the already besieged smaller players trying to sell their wares in a market monetized more by search and eyeballs than by software license revenue. Companies like SpeakLike and Transclick (one of 391 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneers) will likely add the Google engine to their suites of MT engines. Meanwhile, we don’t expect companies like Asia Online, Language Weaver, Microsoft, PROMT, SDL, SYSTRAN, and others with their own MT engines and advancing research to sit on the callable MT sidelines for long.

Earlier today we spoke with Dimitris Sabatakakis, CEO at SYSTRAN, who said that “all MT providers should thank Google for the hype and excitement it brings as MT is now perceived as a practical and usable technology. This means there are more potential customers interested in a MT product or solution. Google’s investment in MT is proof that MT is a key technology for the emerging market and provides a solution to a real need. It is forcing all providers to raise their respective bars. If we stay static, we will collapse.”