Do you speak Google ?

Differences in language are a divider of mankind.There are two ways to overcome this barrier.
In one, we seek to return to a single language, according to the Bible, existed before the Tower
of Babel. Throughout history, some languages actually tried to play that role. For example, the
Latin in antiquity, or English, today. Artificial languages like Esperanto, created in the
nineteenth century by Polish LL Zamenhof, also applied for this task. The other way is the
universal translation. In principle. would be a thing of science fiction. The most unusual type of
universal translator appears in the book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the 70s: a
goldfish is inserted into the ear of the protagonist and sheds alien sentences into English. In
Star Trek, technology comes into play and a device not only enables the conversation between
"Earthlings," but between inhabitants of different planets. Well, as often happens, science
fiction was not dealing with the impossible, but only anticipating the future. The technology is
already advanced in creating a universal translator. The system operates more efficiently on
Google computers, the Internet giant. Today, it enables instant translation of written texts in 52
languages. For the reader, is like putting yourself in front of an infinite library and discover that
all publications are in Portuguese. It is estimated that in ten years 250 languages are already
covered. And at this point, the inclusion of applications of simultaneous translation in
computers and cell phones will allow billions of people to understand - without ever having to
leave the language itself.
Behind the Google translator is the accumulated knowledge in artificial intelligence (AI) branch
of computer science dedicated to the development of models and programs on the machines
that produce an "intelligent" behavior. Born in the '40s, the area has produced famous
experiments like robot Eliza, software that simulates real dialogues in the 60s, and the
supercomputer Deep Blue, IBM, who in 1997 defeated the Russian champion Garry Kasparov
in a chess match. The "brain" of the machine could analyze 200 million moves per second in
the pursuit of checkmate. The first stage of the universal translation - the texts - the Internet
has reached a level that linguists and artificial intelligence experts classify as advanced. This
means that although the translation errors of the tool may be seen, the texts it presents an
opportunity for understanding of the subject that they treat.
The operation of the Google translator refers to the Rosetta Stone, the granite block of 1.20
meters in height which was found by Napoleon's army in the eighteenth century, and served as
the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics. The stone carries inscriptions of the same text in
the ancient language of Egyptian and Greek. In the nineteenth century, scholars fell to Thomas
Young and Jean-François Champollion to relate the terms of the two languages to uncover the
language of the pharaohs. Similarly, the Google computers work with pairs of texts in different
languages and calculate the probability of words of one match under another. Based on these
calculations, the system can, in less than a second, assemble texts in 52 languages, each time
a user requests.
The Google translator is ahead of rivals. In research sponsored by the U.S. government, he
often exceeds tools from other companies and universities. "He is also recognized as the best
among the commercial systems," says David Yarowsky, professor of computer science at
Johns Hopkins University, USA. That means overcoming rivals Bing Translator, Microsoft, and
Babel Fish Yahoo!. "Today. The power of the tool is related to the size of your database. And
also the use of supercomputers, with its immense capacity for processing information,"
explains Helena Casel, a researcher at the Laboratory of Computational Linguistics at the
Federal University of Sao Carlos. If these are the determining factors, it is certain that the
translator will evolve. The increase in information processing ability of supercomputers is
provided by Moore's Law - which holds that chip capacity doubles every 24 months. The
database Google is also growing continuously. He began to be formed in 2006 with UN official
texts rendered into six languages. Then. documents the company turned to bilingual public
archives. Finally, dived on the Internet. . . .