Microsoft launchs Windows Live Translator beta

The arms race between Microsoft and Google has just gone up another notch with the release of Windows Live Translator. Much like Google's Translate Tool, Windows Live Translator lets you enter a block of text for translation from one language or another, or you can enter a URL to have an entire web page translated. Also like Google, Microsoft's web-based translation tool is powered by Systran.

But the interface is quite different. Enter a URL in Google Translate, choose your language options, and you essentially see a full screen version of the website with the text replaced by a computer's best guess of what each word and phrase means. Windows Live Translator doesn't have a full screen option, but gives you a choice of views:

• See each page side by side
• See one page on top of the other
• See the original page, with each line translated as you hover your mouse over it
• See a translated page with the original text of each line displayed as you hover your mouse over it

You have a variety of languages to choose from, including Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. But as with any machine based translation, don't expect Windows Live Translator to give you a perfect translation. But it should give you a good idea of how much that Japan-only notebook computer you've had your eye on really costs.

[via Google Operating System]

Tags: google translate, GoogleTranslate, systran, translate, translation, windows live, windows live translator, WindowsLive, WindowsLiveTranslator