reply: Machine Translation at the European Commission

[Jeff ALLEN <jeff -at- ELDA -dot- FR>]

Fri, 2 Jul 1999 10:40:57, "Peter Ring, PRC"  wrote:
>> >Subject: Machine translation
>> >
>> >I have heard a _rumour_, that the European Commission has made a quite
>> >good machine translation software, which is distributed for free!
>> >
>> >If it is true, does anybody know where to get more information about
>> >it? -- and/or where to get it from?

Here is a reply straight from the horse's mouth.

-------- begin  forwarded message 1 -----------
From: Dorothy -dot- SENEZ -at- SDT -dot- cec -dot- be
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 15:46:22 +0200
To: <jeff -at- elda -dot- fr>
Subject: Re(3): Machine translation at EC

Please feel free to forward my reply to the discussion list.
Best wishes,
Dorothy Senez

-------- end forwarded message 1 -----------

-------- begin forwarded message 2 -----------
From: Dorothy -dot- SENEZ -at- SDT -dot- cec -dot- be
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 12:11:23 +0200
To: <jeff -at- elda -dot- fr>
Subject: Re(2): Machine translation at EC

Dear Mr Allen,

Many thanks for your message. There does seem to be a slight
misunderstanding, but I hope I can clear things up. The situation is as
follows. First of all, it is important to distinguish between the European
Commission's version of the Systran machine translation system and the
commercial version. For details of the latter please consult
www.systransoft.com. Incidentally, the AltaVista Internet search engine
company and Systran S.A. - the commercial Systran arm - have joined forces
to offer real-time machine translation of web pages via the Internet. This
service is free of charge, with restrictions on the size of texts
(http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com).
The Commission has been developing _its_ version of Systran for its own
internal needs over the last twenty years and holds specific, limited
rights to this variety of the system. Access is rectricted to officials
employed by the EU institutions. Hence the Commission's machine translation
system is not available to the general public. Our free-lance translators,
for example, do not have access to EC-Systran. The Commission's rights do,
however, extend to public administrations in the member states of the
European Union.  A growing number of such bodies, including universities,
have been expressing interest in using the system. Any public
administration wishing to obtain access should contact the Commission
(SYSTRAN HELPDESK -at- sdt -dot- cec -dot- be). Such applications will be considered on a
case-by-case basis. Access will be authorised for the specific e-mail
addresses from which the machine translation requests will be sent.
If you have any further questions, do not hestitate to get in touch.
Best regards,
Dorothy Senez
Systran Helpdesk.
-------- end forwarded message 2 -----------

Best,

Jeff

--
Jeff ALLEN
Controlled Language Applications Workshop (CLAW) 2000 committee chairperson
&
TC-FORUM National Point of Contact (France)
-----


=================================================
Jeff ALLEN - Technical Manager/Directeur Technique
European Language Resources Association (ELRA)  &
European Language resources - Distribution Agency (ELDA)
(Agence Europe'enne de Distribution des Ressources Linguistiques)
55, rue Brillat-Savarin
75013   Paris   FRANCE
Tel: (+33) 1.43.13.33.33 - Fax: (+33) 1.43.13.33.30
mailto:jeff -at- elda -dot- fr
http://www.icp.grenet.fr/ELRA/home.html


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