Guide to sequences uploaded

We uploaded a short guide to building and debugging the sequences. It is available at our whitepaper download page.

Carabao Language Kit 1.5.0.1 released

The version 1.5.0.1 is now available for download. Lots of changes and enhancements thanks to ongoing development of Chinese (not in the default database though).

Fixed:

• Regression: "phantom capitalization" of re-used words
• Regression: sequence style forcing / avoiding
  
• Repositioning errors in sentences with attached tokens
• Sequence processing in languages not using white spaces
• Regression: single member sequence processing

Added:

• Lattice-based processing for speech recognition and OCR application usage
• Optional and unmapped members in sequences
• Members in sequences which are validated but not mapped
• Possibility to get a crosslingual representation (components only: DeepAnalyzer and Translation Server)
• Possibility to load content from a disambiguated crosslingual representation
• GUI in Translation Console to enable lattice-based processing
• GUI in Translation Console to enable loading crosslingual representation
• GUI in Translation Console to hint the system about the expected domains in the text
• Analysis mode in Translation Console, when the source and target languages are the same and no styles are enforced / avoided
• Capability of using the white space as a delimiter in languages that don't have white spaces
• Smart quotes and other delimiters

Improved:

• Dictionary GUI - presents thesaurus from another language, if missing in the current language
• Sequence builder GUI - color coding of members which are not mapped, or contain conditions producing empty sets

Carabao Language Kit 1.2.3.0 released

The version 1.2.3.0 is now available for download.

Fixed:

• Handling of single quotes as syntax delimiters in English

Added:

• A segmentation mode more effectively handling languages that don't use white spaces (e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai). In this mode, different character classes are broken into tokens (e.g. Chinese, and then immediately English). The remaining unidentified part is run through unknown heuristic identifier.


• Automatic conversion for Unicode clipboard data into the currently active encoding in tokens table


• Better warning when attempting to overwrite the current token


• A utility to rebuild semantic links cache

Improved:

• In some systems, the table of tokens with every update was adding a new set of system icons (minimize, restore, maximize) to the MDI frame window. The maximize option now causes the window to be set roughly to the full client area, but not in maximize mode

Free source code section

We added a small source code section on our Download page, where we will post freebies for developers.

Carabao Language Kit 1.2.0.0 released

The version 1.2.0.0 is now available for download.

Fixed:

• Unknown patterns were translated as hypernyms


• Regression: certain category-based sequences were omitted on second execution because of a malfunctioning guess scan caching mechanism


• In analytical mode (Carabao DeepAnalyzer), there was a mismatch between word index number and an idiom member index, in sentences with attached tokens such as 'em, 'm


• When copying a token with 1 rule units or less, the text is always reset to the original

Added:

• Capability to match numbers as patterns


• When a translation is not found, the engine tries to fall back to a matching hypernym instead


• New methods to Carabao DeepAnalyzer that enable accessing the members of the detected idioms


• New methods to Carabao CDA that enable accessing the unknown heuristics table


• New sequences


• Russian morphological exceptions

Improved:

• If an "unknown pattern" is forced to match a known word, it will not create a new guess if a guess with a same hypernym already exists. For example, if you force to check, whether a known word can be a city, a new record will not be created, if there is already a guess with a known city
  Automatic input language switching in locator fields
  
• Locator fields are pre-filled with the list of all existing languages in the database, eliminating the need to jump to the next language

The surreal world of VoIP

We're currently working on a massive project involving telephony and mobile technologies, and I had to look for VoIP vendors to cater for relatively simple needs of my client. I have to say that while the needs are simple, the traffic is extremely high, so in monetary terms, it could be a nice deal for the VoIP vendors.

But... is VoIP a strange industry or what. I don't know who runs all these companies - but:

• if you don't know what IVR, DID, PSTN, or all their other "secret handshakes" mean - they won't even talk to you. Forget about the forums, they are even less helpful than Usenet.
  
• the responses come usually after weeks, and they are of the type "I just transferred your inquiry to our sales representative". Obviously, unless you kick and scream, the sales rep won't get back
• you have to re-tell the story over and over again

Ah yes, but the internet is full of dotcomish optimism about mashups and other kewl stuff. Awesome, dude.

Of course, there are also people who do need paying customers, and those who are able to concentrate, and - surprise surprise - they were the ones who got the job eventually.

Published in MultiLingual

My article about real-world applications of machine translation has been published in MultiLingual Computing, the leading industry magazine for globalization, international software development and language technology.

This part is for subscribers only though.