New translation services rolled out by Microsoft

9th September 2008

Microsoft has announced the addition of new translation technology to its search and instant messaging services.

Users can now access Microsoft's translation offerings through the Live Search, Internet Explorer 8, the Windows Live Toolbar and Windows Live Messenger applications, the company said in a post on the Live Search blog.

In Live Search, users can translate specific listings by clicking on a dedicated link, while those chatting on Windows Live Messenger can add the translation bot to their list of contacts and use this to conduct conversations with foreign language-speaking friends.

The languages currently supported by Microsoft Translator include Japanese, French, Spanish, Chinese and German and more languages will be rolled out in the next few months, according to Lane Rau, marketing manager with the Microsoft Research Machine Translation team.

Microsoft first launched its initial online translation service, based on technology provided by Systran, last year.