Jump to content

Yahoo's Babel Fish replaced with Bing Translator


nsane.forums

Recommended Posts

nsane.forums

The long running Babel Fish website language translator feature on Yahoo is now no more. It has been quietly replaced with Microsoft's own Bing Translator system.

For people who began using the World Wide Web when it was first starting out, many of them might remember using Babel Fish to translate websites from other languages. The service, launched by AltaVista, got its name from the alien fish that goes into Arthur Dent's ear in Douglas Adams' classic BBC Radio show (and then novel) The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy to translate alien languages.

Posted Image

Yahoo later acquired AltaVista in 2003 but kept the name Babel Fish for its website translation service. Earlier this week, Microsoft announced that Yahoo users will now get their website translating features from the company's Bing Translator team.

In its blog post, Microsoft said:

We have been working closely with our friends at Yahoo! to make this an easy transition, and Bing Translator is a natural upgrade to the experience with Yahoo! Babel Fish. We support all the languages you used with Babel Fish, and provide a superset of all the features.

The blog post goes into some detail about how Bing Tranalator works with its many features. Still, it's something of a shame that the Babel Fish name, at least in terms of website translation, is now no more as yet another small part of early Internet culture is put out to pasture.

Posted Image View: Original Article

Link to comment
Share on other sites


  • Views 685
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...