If you are a frequent Web surfer like myself, you probably have used the AltaVista search engine frequently to track down those hard-to-find Web sites.
What you probably have not tried, though, is the little 'Translate' link which appears next to the search results provided by AltaVista. I hadn't until last week when curiosity got the better of me.
The link takes you to the AltaVista Translation Service, which attempts to provide on-line, computerised translation of text you provide or from any Web page between English and French, German, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish (or the other way round).
You also can get to the translation service directly by pointing your browser at babelfish.altavista.digital.
com.
Ultimately, the idea behind the AltaVista Translation Service is a great one. As we all know, English has been the dominant language of the Internet up to now. But, with the growing diversity of the Net community, the number of non-English-speaking users and non-English Web sites is increasing rapidly.
To keep their sites accessible, many content providers are faced with providing multilingual versions. Effective on-line translation systems could be one alternate solution.