Translation Applications

From CrisisCommons Wiki

Jump to: navigation, search

Contents

Project Area Overview

Summary

The Translation Applications project area and team is focusing on creating translation applications to be used in the field and by folks helping with the crisis. We have work going on three main areas. See each of the section overviews below for more details.

  • Translation Clients
  • Translation Repositories and Conversion Tools
  • Translation Authoring and Ingestion Tools

How You Can Help

Look at the projects below to look where you can help. In particular look for areas marked "NEED" that don't have someone actively working on them yet. Or if you have a new idea, just let us know on the google group.

Communications/Coordinators

Area Coordinators: David Rees, Chris Selmer

Communication Tools:

Also see individual areas for other communication tools used by those teams

And see Skills List for a list of developers who are working CrisisCommons in general, their contact information, and skillsets.

Translation Clients

Applications that are used to actually do translation, either in the field or by people working to help with the crisis.

iPhone/Android App - Tradui

Tradui is a Creole/English translation application for the iPhone and Android (using Titanium a HTML/JS-based development tool). We already have a working version that does word translation available in the iPhone and Anroid marketplaces. See wiki page for more info.

Contacts: Chris Selmer

Windows Mobile Translation Application

Several folks are looking at writing a translation application for Windows Mobile. Please connect with them if you are interested in working on a WinMo version.

Contacts: Dan Kasun, Beth ?

The WinMo application will support pulling from the Translation Repository and also using the Microsoft Translator when online.

Effective Jan. 24th, Microsoft Translator added Haitian Creole to its languages. See the Tools link off of http://microsofttranslator.com for info on the API. Also, the Tbot tool might be useful in some mobile scenarios where Messenger is available (add mtbot@hotmail.com to contact list).

Nokia Translation Application - Tradikte

Several folks are looking at writing a translation application for Nokia. Please connect with them if you are interested in working on a Nokia version:

Looking at the iPhone (Titanium) version, it looks like the WRT Nokia platform would work for it - Stephan Branczyk @frenchaccent(1/23 at the Silicon Valley Crisis Camp)
Looking at option of using Symbian SDK and Qt, OpenGL by Kiran Vaka (kiran.vaka@gmail.com)

Update (11th Feb '10) by Kiran Vaka: Version 1.0 of Nokia app - Tradikte - for Nokia S60 3rd/5th editions to translate from Haitian Creole to English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Spanish. This is an online app using the Google Translator API. Presently we are in testing phase.

15th Feb '10: Version 1.0 of Tradikte released by Kiran Vaka http://www.kiranwaka.com/haititrans/

Web_Translation_Tool

A web-based translation tool which does basic Creole/English word translation based on the haiti surf dictionary using .NET. See wiki page for more info.

HaitiVoiceNeeds

Is an (IVR) application that takes calls in Haitian, transcribes them, then passes them on to data aggregators who help co-ordinate the response on the ground in Haiti. See wiki page for more info.

Foto Pale

Foto Pale is a simple prototype of how pict-o-speak app might work that works on the Web and on iPhone/Android using Titanium (using Titanium a HTML/JS-based development tool). See Pict-o-speak_Mobile_Application for more information.

Blackberry Application (NEED)

We have heard that Blackberry is a very popular device with US Gov and several of the largest NGO groups. So a Blackberry translation app would be very helpful.

Other Proposed Work/Projects

  • Desktop Application


Repository and Libraries

Translation clients need a translation repository with the word translations, phrases, sounds, and images they use. The repository is also where all the hard work of translators ends up. As the center between these two areas it is important we have a common repository structure and tools for accessing this structure that make it easy for clients to use and sources to populate. This area is focused on helping to define the build those repositories, on converting between repository formats, and libraries for accessing the repositories (and other repositories).

Translation Repository

This is the project for defining the Translations Repository schema as we continue to add new functionality like sound and picto-o-speak.

Contacts: David Rees, Paul Danckaert
  • NEED - The schema for the XML needs to be documented. There currently is a draft XML in the Translation JavaScript project, but we need that turned into a documented schema with instruction for developers who are using it as a client or updating it.

David Medinets (david.medinets@gmail.com) I downloaded the project at http://github.com/pauldanckaert/webtradui and am working to create xml schema files for categories.xml, phrases.xml, and word_dictionary.xml.


  • NEED - It also need to be clarified and documented how image files and sound files will be referenced in the XML and how they will be stored (so that clients know where to find them and authoring apps know where to put them). As part of this we need to decide where/how we will do image conversion for different clients (desktop size vs. mobile size).

-- Translation team in Denver is working on pictographs and a taxonomy, once we have the basic structure we can add it to the repository so that apps can use it Reesd

Repository JavaScript

This is a JavaScript library for using the Repository within a browser or with clients like Tradui. It also serves as a wrapper to hide schema changes as they occur. It is available at http://github.com/pauldanckaert/webtradui. Contact: Paul Danckaert

Repository Server (Proposed)

A server that makes the repository, including images and sounds, would be useful to allow application to download updates.

Microsoft Translator JS Library (NEED)

We would like a JS library that supports querying the Microsoft Translator, which just added (1/24) Haitian Creole to its list of languages. The JS library could then be used by the applications when they are online.

Translation Authoring, Ingestion, and Engines

The information used for translation needs to be imported from existing sources or authored by some of the many great volunteers into the repository so they can be used by the applications. The projects here are focused on importing that data or providing ways way for volunteers to provide new data for the translation apps. Note that this project area is not focused on the actually authoring of the translations or the actual process of managing the translators, that is covered by the Languages and Translations Project Area.

Phase Translation Spreadsheet

The team has created a Google spreadsheet to allow the translations team to give us phrase translations between English, French, and Creole organized by category. See Phase Translation Spreadsheetto get usage instructions and a link to the sheet itself.

  • Contacts - Phil Kalina, Mary Francis
  • NEED - Translators to help fill the spreadsheet
  • NEED - Subject matter experts or web researchers to help identify the key phrases we need to support

Phrase Spreadsheet Converter (NEED)

We need someone to write a converter from the phrases spreadsheet (which can be accessed as CSV) into the Repository XML format so that applications can use it.

Translation Authoring Tool (NEW)

To facilitate better ingestion of translations across a much larger audience (crowd sourcing) we are looking at creating an online service to allow people to submit, review, update translation information. This would include words, phrases, images, and sounds.

  • Idea - Maybe backend it with MS Translator to give first cuts of translation for people to review.

Machine Translation System (CCMTS)

See wikipage for more information.

  • FUTURE - Once the system is programmed, we will want to support connecting to it from apps to use it and hopefully look at a way to populate the repository from it

An instance of ccmts is running, it's called CrisisTerp & it is live!

Related Projects

Languages and Translation is the main project that all of this work depend on. These volunteers guys are pulling together resources and doing actual translation work that we are feeding or hope to feed into the repositories these applications use. Some of the related work they are doing includes:

  • Translating phrases and categorizing phrases in the google spreadsheet (contact Mary Francis)
  • Working on pictograph images and taxonomy (contact Jamaica Jones)
  • Recording sound clips and hopefully associating them with words and phrases (contact Jack ?)

Reference Information

Retrieved from "http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/wiki/Translation_Applications"
Personal tools