As a user, you already know of Google Translate and Bing Translator. But now Amazon translation will be releasing their translation services to the public, according to media reports.
Machine Translation
Amazon already uses machine-translation technology. It uses the technology across the company to provide product information in multiple languages. On previously available internally, it will offer the service to third parties via Amazon Web Services. This service could be used to make websites and apps available in multiple languages. The announcement could be revealed at the annual re:Invent conference in Las Vegas in November 2017.
The Team Behind Amazon Machine Translation
This all comes from the Amazon acquisition two years ago of the translation start-up Safaba based in Pennsylvania.
The machine translation that Amazon provides helps solve language translation problems across various use-cases and applications. The team of 50 has expectations of growth with the development of machine translation. According to Bill Kaper, General Manager of Amazon Pittsburgh and General Manager of the Translation Services group, the possibility of going “beyond” developing MT for Amazon’s own business groups.
Kaper also said, “we absolutely believe human translators and human translation services will continue to be a vital component to improving the overall translation space.”
Facebook is another company that, other than Google, who developed machine translation technology for its main app. Wanting to add to their artificial intelligence game, the addition of machine translation would work well with the tools they already have. The tools including recognizing objects in images and turning any text into speech. It would diversify its revenue by going into a sector other than raw computing and storage resources that other companies already provide.
So only time will tell if these media reports are correct. We await for the announcement at the re:Invent Conference in November.