Babylon Translator

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Babylon Translator

Babylon logo.png
Basic data

developer Babylon Software Ltd.
Current  version NG
operating system Windows
category Dictionary , translation , conversion , voice output
License Proprietary software
German speaking Yes
deutsch.babylon-software.com

Babylon Translator is an automatic translation program for Microsoft Windows operating systems. It has text recognition, which enables the translation to be started by clicking on any word in the text. The program uses integrated OCR software for this purpose . Words to be looked up are recognized directly on the screen - the principle works even in image files. Compared to the programs known at the time of its publication, a new user interface has been popularized.

In 1997, Babylon Translator implemented the motto " Information at your fingertips " propagated by Bill Gates , which contained a general, fast accessibility of information using computers connected to networks as a vision. A simple click of the mouse on a keyword in Babylon provides its translation into other languages, the meaning of abbreviations, etc. by integrating a wide variety of reference works.

History and controversy

The story of Babylon began in 1995 when Amnon Ovadia had the idea of ​​creating an English-Hebrew dictionary that would no longer interrupt the reading process on the PC screen. Babylon was founded in 1997 in Or Jehuda , Israel by Ovadia and Shuki Preminger, financially supported by Mashov Computers (now Formula Vision Technologies Ltd. ). In the autumn of the same year, a first US patent for the innovative translation approach was applied for.

In 1998, a year after the company's start, the company boasted more than 2 million users, mostly in Germany and Brazil , with the number of users increasing from 420,000 to 2.5 million that year alone. In 2000, there were already more than 4 million users, and the program was one of the most popular in terms of the number of files downloaded on ZDnet France, AOL Germany and Tucows.

In early 2000, the company ran into financial difficulties. In the spring of 2000, the attempt at a private placement by Babylon Ltd., which was supposed to bring in US $ 20 million in preparation for an IPO, failed , with the result that the company's hopes of going public later had to be given up. Babylon Ltd. also lost this year 15 million shekels . The financial crisis known as the dot-com bubble went even further downhill . In 2001 the financial losses for Babylon Ltd. continued. continued, which cost the parent company Formula Vision a further 4.7 million shekels.

As a result of the financial losses, Babylon changed its business model away from the freeware offer towards a paid license , whereupon, according to Wired, some users complained with statements such as "undermining the spirit of the Internet" . On computers with an Internet connection without an installed firewall, the free client stopped its service and forced users to purchase the software that was subject to a fee. Without an Internet connection, the offline dictionary dict50.exe had to be installed. The company also used in previous Adware versions on this controversial because often called spyware looked Cydoor component that z. B. also set in 2005 eXeem client for peer-to-peer - sharing was used. User tracking was carried out up to version 4.0 .

In 2007, the entrepreneur and investor Noam Lanir (born February 18, 1967) entered the company with a majority control, and developments such as the new version of Babylon Builder and the online community service LingoZ , which was introduced in preparation for the release of version 7.0, make the current change in the philosophy of the company Babylon visible. The LingoZ FAQ speak a clear language: "Secondly, we give loud and clear credit to contributors" . For the licensed software client, in addition to the commercially marketed content and the Babylon content created by the former community, which is accessible online for everyone, there are now online expandable LingoZ glossaries from Babylon Ltd. at your disposal.

Babylon Ltd.

Babylon Ltd. was founded in 1997 as a development company for the translation software of the same name. The head office of the company, which employs around 80 people, is located in Israel . There is also a subsidiary in Germany.

In February 2007, the company ventured on the Israeli Stock Exchange in Tel Aviv .

Major shareholders of Babylon Ltd. are Reed Elsevier ( LSE : REL, NYSE : RUK), Formula Vision Technologies, a subsidiary of Formula Systems ( NASDAQ : FORTY), The Monitin Group (Eliezer Fishman), and company founder Amnon Ovadia.

Paid offers from Babylon

The trial version of the Babylon client is limited to 30 days. From 1997 to early 2001, Babylon software was offered for free download. In February 2001 with version 4.0 Babylon Ltd. switched to commercial software licenses for private users, whereby older versions of the Babylon client sometimes no longer worked properly afterwards.

For some time now, Babylon has been offering companies a special, chargeable Babylon Enterprise version , especially for use in companies.

The current Babylon client offers an integrated system for speech output , with which you can choose between different voices and adjust the speaking rate.

Babylon now offers numerous paid content from well-known dictionary publishers such as PONS , Wahrig , Langenscheidt , Oxford , Britannica and many other publishers for implementation and use in the Babylon Translator, but there is also a large number of free glossaries available for use in the Babylon Translator.

Free content for licensed Babylon users

Conversions

Offers available free of charge to licensed baby users include: a. Weather information, schedules and exchange rates , the latter automatically with existing online connection via the service provider XE.com on the Babylon Client Forex - market values are updated and thus always up to date for conversion between different currencies are available.

Furthermore, the Babylon Translator can be used to convert various physical measured quantities and units into other SI units and non-SI units.

Quantities that can be converted using Babylon
Angle measure route Area volume Dimensions density force Torque
speed energy power pressure temperature time File size Kitchen measure

The local time and the time difference between two places, as well as the difference between different time zones can also be determined with the help of the Babylon software.

Glossary Builder and Free Dictionaries

The Babylon Translator initially spread quite quickly after its release, as users created dictionaries for numerous areas with the free Babylon Builder and offered them for free download.

These dictionaries and directories are freely offered by Babylon, but a software license for the Babylon Translator is required to use them today . This indirect commercialization of content created for free led to considerable anger in the Babylon community at the time , because the voluntary commitment of the users was used for commercial purposes.

In mid-August 2007, Babylon released the third version of its user dictionary creation software, Babylon Glossary Builder . This new version is based on XML and is offered free of charge for private users, but for a fee for companies.

Glossaries that were created with Microsoft Word or other text editors could be imported as HTML files after saving in earlier versions of Babylon Builder . This functionality is no longer supported in the same way by the new Babylon Glossary Builder.

A glossary project (GPR) created with the Babylon Glossary Builder to create a Babylon Glossary (BGL) is based either on Babylon GLS or TXT files or on XLS or XLSX files ( Microsoft Excel ), whereby the Software offers various options for creating the dictionaries and allows online content to be linked.

Especially exotic dictionaries

Since the Babylon Glossary Builder enables the creation of glossaries with any content, there are also exotic dictionaries such as

Online content in the Babylon client

Since 2006, Babylon has provided access to Wikipedia in 13 languages ​​(Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish). Babylon represents the first section of a Wikipedia article in the client and provides the user with a link to the entire article.

After the translator had lost a considerable part of its earlier importance due to its commercialization, the translation tool seems to gain in importance again in recent times, probably also because of the free plug-ins for using Wikipedia in connection with Babylon.

In addition, a translation function is integrated in the current Babylon client, which transfers a freely entered text to a server for online machine translation using third-party software and returns the translation of this text in a few seconds, with the source and target language from a range of 17 or 18 possible Languages ​​can be chosen.

Babylon Online

On the Babylon homepage, in addition to the many commercial and non-commercial downloadable dictionaries, the Babylon Online Dictionary is an online service that enables you to search for words or translations in the 1300 dictionaries available for Babylon in over 50 languages. The online service also offers the option of not only searching the web using Google , but also searching for word definitions in the glossaries available at Babylon under the heading definition .

With version 7.0 Babylon Ltd. A new online dictionary was introduced under the name LingoZ , which can be maintained like a wiki and which already contains almost 4.5 million definitions due to the already existing, integrated Babylon content.

Version history

From version 4, the Babylon client can be upgraded to the current version.

Paid versions of the Babylon Translator Client

Surname Version number Publication date Innovations
Babylon 10 Version 10.5.0.12 November 14, 2016 Allows translations with just a click of the mouse and direct access to Wikipedia
Babylon 9 Version 9.0.5 June 10, 2012 Unknown
Babylon 8 Version 8.0.0.22 May 2009 Full text translation, website translation, spell check, Babylon Globe
Babylon 7 Version 7.0.3 (r24) September 4, 2008 New start screen with animation
Babylon 7 Version 7.0.0 (r13) October 11, 2007 Configurable layout with new function buttons, LingoZ integration, language and context-dependent translation
Babylon 6 Version 6.0.3 (r4) July 16, 2007 Integrated Babylon Search toolbar
Babylon 6 Version 6.0.2 June 27, 2007 Improvements to the Adobe Acrobat plug-in, integration of the Babylon Search online search , improvements in the use of Windows Vista
Babylon 6 Version 6.0.1 4th December 2006 Translation from Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer using the context menu and toolbar , user interface now available in 14 instead of the previous twelve languages, Windows Vista compatibility, dictionary updates, new currencies in currency conversion
Babylon 6 Version 6.0.0 (r20) April 30, 2006 New user interface with integrated one-click machine translation in 17 languages ​​(online), SAPI5 -compatible speech output ( Say it ) using Microsoft Windows text to speech speech synthesis
Babylon-Pro Version 5.0.6 (r13) November 29, 2005 Alternative spelling ( Did you mean? ), Back translation with a click of the mouse, copy & paste in other applications, sidebar , extended dictionaries
Babylon or Babylon-Pro Version 4.0.3 February 2001 Revised user interface, new configuration menu with license management for integrated third-party products, improved word analysis enables more reliable recognition of the respective basic form of conjugated word forms, improved text recognition in PDF documents

Free versions of the Babylon Translator Client

Surname Version number Publication date Innovations
Babylon Translator-Pro Version 3.2.40 Before February 2001 (start of the paid offer) Source language English , translation into twelve languages, new conversion functions for foreign exchange and physical quantities, voice output, adding words to dictionaries (?)

Deficiency in PDF documents: zooming in or enlarging text sections before the software clearly recognized words.

Babylon Translator-Pro Version 3.2 2000
Babylon Translator Version 3.1 2000
Babylon Translator Version 3.0.4.0 2000
Babylon Translator Version 3.0 2000
Babylon Translator Version 2.2.30 2000

Babylon Glossary Builder

Surname Version number Publication date description Dictionaries compatible with
Babylon Glossary Builder Version 3.1.0 (r10) August 16, 2007 Supports the construction of dictionaries in Microsoft Excel Babylon 6
Babylon Builder Version 2.2 Build 0004.0000 Dictionaries based on TXT or HTML files saved from MS Word Babylon 5
Babylon Builder Version 1.0.63 Glossaries can be imported from HTML files with images in BMP, ICO or JPG format or exported in this format. The program supports Arabic, German, English, French, Italian, Japanese, Russian and Spanish.

Alternatives to Babylon

Programs that cover the full range of functions of the Client and Glossary Builder do not yet exist. However, there are different alternatives for the various functionalities. These include u. a. following tools:

Babylon as malware

In August 2010, Microsoft classified the then current version as malware . This classification was revoked within a few days for an updated version. The Babylon Toolbar is adware and a browser hijacker that not only adds a toolbar to the installed browsers, but also changes the homepage to Babylon Search . Spybot has classified this toolbar as malware and recommends uninstalling it.

Web links

Sources and individual references

  1. ↑ PDF source on the history from 2001 ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.eeug.org
  2. ↑ PDF on the US patent from 1997
  3. ↑ US patent in Google Patent Search
  4. ↑ Babble on ( Memento of February 13, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Article by Marimar Jiménez from 2000 ( Memento from May 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ a b c By The Users of Babylon , Jerusalem Post, May 2002
  7. ↑ Former website of Babylon.com at on web.archive.com ( Memento from September 1, 2000 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ TheStreet.com to the losses of Formula Vision in 2001
  9. ↑ Wired article from 2002 How to Translate "Free" to "Fee" ( Memento from November 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ User tracking record for version 4.x ( Memento from May 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ Noam Lanir, dld-conference.com (accessed on March 2, 2014)
  12. ↑ LingoZ FAQ's - Why do you think this will work?
  13. ↑ Information on the main shareholders from March 14, 2006 ( Memento from May 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  14. ↑ Heise online on version 4.0
  15. ↑ Babylon press release on the integration of Wikipedia ( Memento from September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  16. ↑ Version history, information and screenshots from version 2.2.27 to 4.0.3 (Spanish) ( Memento from September 16, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  17. ↑ Press release on Babylon Glossary Builder ( Memento from September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  18. ↑ Information on Babylon Builder Version 1 (Spanish) ( Memento from October 16, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  19. ↑ Microsoft Malware Protection Center: Adware: Win32 / Babylon
  20. ↑ SpyBot: Manual Removal Guide for Babylon.Toolbar