Monthly Archives: September 2017

  • Bing Translate fails (yet) again

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Social Media, Tech

    Social media platform Twitter uses Bing Translate, (another fine Microsoft product? Ed.), for tweet translation.

    However, as this blog has highlighted before, Bing Translate isn’t all that good.

    Indeed, for all practical purposes, it’s completely useless.

    Evidence for this is legion. The latest in my timeline is shown below, where Bing Translate manages, with no external aid or interference, to confuse Somali, a Cushitic branch Afro-Asian language, with Estonian, a Finnic branch Uralic language.

    text related to Bing reads Translate from Estonian

    This for me is reminiscent of the old Stork margarine advertisements that were doing the rounds in my childhood, where gullible television viewers were improbably told that the taste of Stork was indistinguishable from that of butter (or butter from a dead crab. Ed.).

  • Bristol Crown Court judge resorts to Google Translate

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Politics

    Bristol Crown CourtThe shambles that is the Ministry of Justice’s outsourcing of court interpreting services continues, although it does not have such a high media profile these days.

    Today’s Bristol Post reports that a judge was forced to use Google Translate to discuss a case with the defendant.

    Bath resident Jaroslaw Nowacki was appearing at Bristol Crown Court on Wednesday 30th August to answer a charge of possession of a kitchen knife in a public place without good reason or lawful authority.

    However, His Honour Judge Euan Ambrose was unaware until the hearing that Nowacki would need the services an interpreter.

    After confirming the defendant was originally from Poland, the judge decided to adjourn the plea hearing until 6th September to arrange for an interpreter to be in attendance.

    The Post continues:

    But due to Nowacki’s limited grasp of English, he did not understand what he was being told and Judge Ambrose turned to Google Translate to get his message across.

    “Whether Google Translate will accurately translate what I want to say I don’t know,” said the judge.

    After spending several minutes typing out a message, Judge Ambrose printed it off and it was handed to Nowacki for him to read in the dock.

    Nowacki then confirmed that he understood the message and the case was adjourned.

  • Two point releases for LibreOffice

    Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Open Standards, Tech

    On the last day of August, The Document Foundation (TDF) announced two point releases for the popular LibreOffice productivity suite: LibreOffice 5.4.1 “Fresh”, the first minor release of the new LibreOffice 5.4 family; and LibreOffice 5.3.6 “Still”, the sixth release of the mature LibreOffice 5.3 family.

    LibreOffice 5.4.1 represents the bleeding edge in term of features, and as such is targeted at technology enthusiasts and early adopters, whereas LibreOffice 5.3.6 is targeted at more conservative users and enterprise deployments.

    As regards enterprise use, TDF suggests deploying LibreOffice 5.3.6 with support from certified professionals. Furthermore, many companies sitting on TDF’s Advisory Board also provide either value-added Long Term Supported versions of LibreOffice or consultancy services for migration to LibreOffice and training.

    LibreOffice 5.4.1 includes approximately 100 bug and regression fixes, along with document compatibility improvements. Technical details about the bug fixes can be found in the RC1 and RC2 change logs.

    LibreOffice 5.4.1 screenshot
    LibreOffice 5.4.1 (Writer) in action

    LibreOffice 5.3.6 includes approximately 50 bug and regression fixes. As with 5.4.1, technical details about the release can be found in the change log.

    Download LibreOffice

    LibreOffice 5.4.1 and LibreOffice 5.3.6 are available for immediate download for GNU/Linux, Mac OSX and Windows. Select the version you desire for your preferred operating system.

    Please note that if you’re still using Windows XP or Windows Vista, LibreOffice 5.4 will be the last release that will run on those legacy operating systems.

    Support LibreOffice

    LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members are invited to support The Document Foundation with a donation. Donations help TDF to maintain its infrastructure, share knowledge and organise events, such as this year’s LibreOffice Conference, which will be taking place in Rome in October.

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