March 20th, 2008
Google releases AJAX Translation API
Google has been releasing lots of API’s lately — their latest is the AJAX Translation API. What does that mean? Webmasters can now let users do on-the-fly translations and language detection. One interesting example might be a comment box on a blog that immediately throws an warning message when a user tries to post something in a language other than English. Or, even more interesting, have comments be automatically translated to English so the majority of readers can understand the comment.
Here are a few examples that Google has whipped up to show off the API:
- Real-time language translation - This sample lets you type something in the textbox and will instantly translate the text as soon as you push the button.
- Language detection - If you know another language, or can find some foreign text somewhere on the web and paste it into the textbox, clicking the button will tell you which language it thinks it is, and how certain it is.
The features of both of these examples together could be the foundation for some really interesting real-world applications. Very cool.
On a related note, Google has released a few new chart types for the Google Chart API. These include:
Radar Chart
Sparklines
Map Chart
These new chart types and the new unlimited API calls for the Chart API makes this API even more useful.
Garett Rogers is employed as a programmer for iQmetrix, which specializes in retail management software for the cellular and electronics industry. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
