Microsoft has announced that their translation services are changing. The date is April 30, 2017. They will be changing to a new set of API’s they named Azure.
Time passes by
I have no idea how many, if any, SL Translators depend on the Microsoft API’s. But, those that do will need to change. Continue reading
If you use a translator in Second Life, you know recent changes at Google have caused several models of translators to fail. You also know that since 2012 the viewer’s built-in translator cannot be connected to the Bing or Google translation services as originally planned by the Lab. Viewer translation is essentially broken. We have to use an add-on.
JUSTICE COURTESY OF (wear)*katat0nik* (melon) Heart War Hammer Click to resize RARE by ▓▒░ TORLEY ░▒▓, on Flickr
Following this blog you’ve seen the recent previous articles. (See: Second Life: Metanomics Translator Failing.) Continue reading
I have seen a couple of posts in the SL Forum about the Metanomics translator giving a script error and not translating. I decided to try mine.
~Carolina Bertolline~ by Luaflor Moo, on Flickr
I don’t get an error with my copy of the Metanomics translator. I get a bunch of garbage in the chat window. It is definitely having a problem with the Second Life 3.7.27 (300424) viewer. Continue reading
This translation thing is present for me now. I decided to try and get the Bing Free Translation API working in my viewer. That would save me using Discord’s Metanomics, that he really doesn’t seem to want out there.
The result of my effort is: BUG-8794 – The Bing API used by the viewer is depreciated.
Tameless Green With Envy Outfit – St. Patrick’s Day by Nita Bracken, on Flickr
The Lab was making the change over to a viewer based translator in late 2011. That was in response to Bing, Google, Yahoo, and other players in the translate game deciding they would charge for their translation service. Continue reading
Word gets around. Ravelli Ormstein learned of the article Second Life Free Language Translator I wrote and responded. You can see the comment here, scroll down. He gave me a link to a buried comment made by the author of the translator. That comment is enlightening. Read it below the fold.
“Pain” by Logan McMahn, on Flickr
IMPORTANT – READ:Second Life: Update on Metanomics Translator
A couple of years back Google decided to charge for its translator service. Many of the translators in use in Second Life were dependent on Google’s service. Those translators failed.
Babelfish by –Tico–, on Flickr
Do you remember the Bablefish translator? That was my translator until Google changed the API.
Soon other translation services followed Google’s lead. One must now have an account of some kind to use those services in a Second Life app… or any app. Continue reading
No… not for the Second Life viewer. This is for your web browser. Using Google’s Chrome you may have run into pages that it does not offer to translate. This happens when the browser simply cannot figure out what language was used for the page.
Google Translate App’s Button
There are a couple of solutions to force Chrome to translate the page in such cases.
Try right clicking the page. Click on an empty part of the page or text. Avoid right clicking on pictures and links. After a right-click look in the popup menu for Translate to [language]. Your native language choice should be in the [ ]. Selecting that will cause the page translation.
Some times the option will be grayed out. When Chrome thinks the page is already in English this happens. If you see this problem then you need the next option. The free Google Translate App. It places a button on Chrome that allows you to trigger a translation. See the image.
The icon used with this app has changed over time. It may also change based on your language. So, don’t be surprised if my picture and your icon are different.
In December of 2011 Google ended their free language translation service. Now Bing is ending theirs, may be. Google announced their intentions to do so early in 2011. Public outcry caused the management of Google to reconsider. In the end they decided to turn it into a paid system. Bing made their announcement in April of this year.
Bing Translator API
All the Second Life™ viewers and third party viewers, once upon a time, used the free service Google provided. There were various translation devices in Second Life that used Yahoo, Google, or Bing translation services. Google’s seemed to be the preferred service.