Distributed Programming Takes On Translation

There are distributed programs dedicated to curing cancer, and there are other ones dedicated to indexing the 'Net. But one described by New Scientist ( http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992115 ) aims to harness distributed programs for translation.

As the article describes it, the World Wide Lexicon (WWL) project would not use idle computer cycles, but idle human brain cycles. When the computer user is less busy they will be asked to translate a certain word or phrase. While something like this seems to me ripe for abuse ("My hovercraft is full of eels!") developer Brian McConnell hopes to put an automatic system for peer review into the project.

The WWL project is expected to be released at the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference next month.

Posted to Culture-Languages