Web Translator API

[sfmz]

https://developer.chrome.com/docs/ai/translator-api

const translator = await Translator.create({ sourceLanguage: 'en', targetLanguage: 'fr', });

await translator.translate('Where is the next bus stop, please?');

[ks2048]

So, this is Google Translate built running locally in Chrome? I wonder if it is a small/degraded model or limited languages? Otherwise, how is it not a simple way around the paid Google API?

[troupo]

While this might be useful, be mindful:

- it's experimental

- the "specification" is nowhere near a standards track: https://webmachinelearning.github.io/translation-api/

Of course it's already shipped in Chrome, and now Chrome pretends that its own Chrome-only API is somehow standard. Expect people on HN to blame other browsers for not shipping this.

[jazzypants]

I've been pleasantly surprised by the last few conversations about this type of thing that I've seen. It seems like people are pretty sick of Chrome's IE proclivities.

[moron4hire]

This is the W3C standardization process.

The W3C is not a prescriptive standardization body. It doesn't have any regulatory power giving it any teeth to go after vendors acting in bad faith. So the W3C process is descriptive and encourages a period of competitive divergence in implementations. It is only after the early adopters have hammered on the features and figured out which parts they like best that a Web API can then start to get standardized.

[sandstrom]

This would be very useful.

Basically, the 'translate this' button you see on Twitter or Instagram next to comments in foreign languages. This API would make it trivial for all developers to add that to their web apps.

[greatgib]

Except that it is the user that will pay with his own llm tokens

[vitonsky]

As maintainer of https://linguister.io/, should I start work on polyfill for that API?

If this API will be implemented in next few years, there will be browsers who hold up the world in progress.

Linguist have enough many users, so we could expose this API for client side code, and users with browsers where Translation API is not implemented yet, could install Linguist and sites who uses Translation API would works fine. Translation API calls would proxy by Linguist and preferred translator module would be used.

Any thoughts about it?

[RockRobotRock]

https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/1015

[sandstrom]

I honestly don't understand the arguments Mozilla have against it.

Safari/webkit is positive (though no official stance yet):

https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/339#iss...

[pwdisswordfishz]

Why does it need to be a JavaScript API?

Why not just use the lang= attribute as it was intended, then let the user select text to translate as they wish?

[diggan]

If it's a HTML attribute, then you can only use it with DOM elements, with no control about when it runs.

Instead, a JS API gives more flexibility and control.

Besides, I think the "lang" attribute is supposed to signal what the language of the text inside that element is, not what it could/should be. So even if going with attributes would be the way forward, a new one would need to be created.

[tempodox]

It's only implemented in Google Chrome, so go figure.

[rhabarba]

You had me at "Browser compatibility".

[Raed667]

Chrome embeds a small LLM (never stops being a funny thing) in the browser allowing them to do local translations.

I assume every browser will do the same as on-device models start becoming more useful.

[tempodox]

What compatibility? It's Chrome-only.

[seabass]

With js being a garbage collected language, what is the benefit of the destroy method here and why is it necessary?

[charcircuit]

The is no guarantee when it will be garbage collected. For large local models that use a lot of resources they should be unloaded as soon as possible to allow other programs on the computer to use the resources.

[lynx97]

Can we please NOT autotranslate the web? I have yet to find a site where the quality of autotranslate does not make me stop using that site. I was already irritated when google started to show me de.wikipedia.org articles adespite me explicitly searching for the english article name. Then came Etsy, where the autotranslate quality was so bad I stopped using the site altogether.

[diggan]

The good news is that if the browsers offered this natively, websites wouldn't need their own implementation of this. And if it's in the client (the browser), you're most likely gonna be able to turn it off globally, just like how you like it.

Worst case scenario a user-script/extension could monkey patch it out, but probably clients will let you disable it.

[sandstrom]

This is not auto-translation.

Rather, it's an API developers can use to add inline translation to web apps.

For example, under a comment in your app, you can (a) detect the language, and (b) if it's different from the current users/browsers language, offer to translate it with a small link (c) if the user clicks the link, the content is translated to their language.

[lofaszvanitt]

But Reddit already does it! It's a new form of cultural colonisation by a headless society.

[minus7]

I was excited that Firefox finally exposed its local translations as API, but it's Chrome-only (still?). Will be nice for userscripts, for example to replace Twitter's translation button that hardly ever works

[troupo]

> I was excited that Firefox finally exposed its local translations as API, but it's Chrome-only (still?).

Bacause it was, is, and will be Chrome-only for the forseeable future: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44375326

[indeyets]

So, the browsers have to provide some means for choosing the desired translation engine (add-on API maybe?) and this is a standard API which all of the providers should implement.

right?

[mediumsmart]

I am ok with Chronic translating the Italian version of a site back into the original German version living in the neighboring folder for good money.

[pabs3]

Wish this was a desktop API too, would be useful outside web browsers too, especially in email clients.

[nachomg]

This gives strong IE vibes.

[eeee11]

灌灌灌灌

[eeee11]

哈哈哈

[lofaszvanitt]

Another useful feature that nobody could've replicated themselves.