Google Translate reports 200 million monthly users
(CBS News) Google reported Thursday that Google Translate has reached 200 million monthly active users in six years.
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"In a given day we translate roughly as much text as you'd find in 1 million books. To put it another way: what all the professional human translators in the world produce in a year, our system translates in roughly a single day," said Franz Och, research scientist at Google Translate, in a blog post.
Google Translate has a simple interface, where users can input text and choose a language they wish to translate. Currently, the service translated text in 64 languages.
Och has a wider vision for the future of Google Translate and hopes to integrate the technology across Google products. Google Chrome automatically detects foreign languages and asks users if they want the text translated. Google Translate could work with Google Documents someday, for example.
"We imagine a future where anyone in the world can consume and share any information, no matter what language it's in, and no matter where it pops up," said Och.
