The World Wide Lexicon Project – a clever toolbar

Have you ever wondered what the Japanese, Arabic or even Turkish press are saying in the news today ? Well it may now be possible for the monoglot community to “read” and “understand” different languages.

Indeed, the World Wide Lexicon Project (as reported by the NewScientist) is essentially a simple software that identifies the language of the web page you are trying to view and translates it for you…without changing the layout or the design of it, of course.

How does it work ? You specify the language you want it translated into …and it does the rest…However do not be too amazed by this technology. The software (or plug in) simply researches the translations available for that website, provided by the project’s community. In which case none is available, it will simply use the infamous: Google Translate.

These sort of projects are not new, and few have been around for quite a while. In fact, this reminds me a little bit of the “Facebook Translation Project”… What happened to it? Does the Facebook community need more volunteers?

I suggest you give it a go, a test version is avaible with Firefox. You have also an option to join the project’s community.

I will be watching this space.

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Samia Kesseiri

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