Surf in any language?

AltaVista's new translation service (www.altavista.digital.com), still in beta at press time, automatically translates into English any Web page written in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, or Spanish. You just click Translate and AltaVista's software translates the page in seconds. But does it work? You be the judge.   A nugget of car history from Ferrari's Web site (left) and the English version produced by Altavista's translation service (right). Perhaps it needs a little more work . . .   Remember, pages written in a foreign tongue probably aren't indexed in English. So you'll need to know the Portuguese word for platypus before you can search any Portuguese Web pages on the subject. Also, if you have overseas correspondents, you can type in an e-mail message, and AltaVista will translate it into the language you specify. But I wouldn't advise using this feature if you're a diplomat. û Judy Heim

Category: Internet Issue: May 1998

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