GO Network Introduces Multi-lingual Translator

Infoseek’s portal site, GO Network, Thursday rolled its new GO Network Translator service, enabling users to translate Web sites, e-mail, and other text using 10 common language pairs.

The front-end service allows non-English speaking users, 90 percent of the Web according to the company, to translate languages including French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. It was first launched on the AltaVista search engine.

“While half of all Internet users have traditionally been English-speaking, that percentage is expected to decline over time,” said Patrick Naughton, Infoseek’s executive vice president of products.

Users can translate the Web and communicate multi-lingually via Infoseek’s front end, which pre-processes and normalizes various HTML types, in conjunction with capabilities provided through a license agreement with SYSTRAN. The technology enables the translator to handle larger, more complex pages allowing users to translate nearly twice the amount of content than usual.

To employ the service, users clicks on the Translator link on the Go.com home page, and enter a URL in the URL box and receive a translation back in seconds in the targeted language. A second click on any link within the translated page automatically translates subsequent pages, without the user having to re-enter a second, third or fourth URL.

In addition, text can also be cut from a source and pasted into a separate, text box for translation. The company said the translation process is not delayed by graphics and other elements. A one-step process, users do not have to select the intended frame from a list of all frames, since the translator isolates content frames automatically.

“With the introduction of Translator, we are making the Internet a truly International medium by making it more accessible to more people than ever,” Naughton said.