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Babylon (program)

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Babylon
Babylon 6.0.0
Developer	Babylon Ltd.
Latest release	7.0
OS	Windows
Genre	Translation
License	Proprietary
Website	www.babylon.com

Babylon is a single-click translation and information source utility program. When a user clicks on text with the right mouse button or combination of the right mouse and another key, the Babylon window appears with a translation and description of the clicked word. It is a tool used for translation and currency conversion, as well as for obtaining other contextual information. Babylon has a patented OCR technology and a single-click activation that works in any Windows program, such as Word, Outlook, Excel, Internet Explorer and Adobe Reader (PDF documents). When activated, Babylon opens a small popup window that displays the translation.

1 Available Dictionaries, Encyclopedias and other Services
2 Program History and Controversy
3 Company Information
4 Version History
5 References
6 See also
7 External links

Available Dictionaries, Encyclopedias and other Services

The program includes built-in dictionaries (e.g., English-English, Hebrew-English, English-German, English-French, English-Spanish), community-created dictionaries (e.g., technical terms, jokes, acronyms), and premium content for an additional cost (e.g., Encyclopædia Britannica, Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary). The program also uses uses a text-to-speech agent to let users hear the proper pronunciation of words. Babylon Ltd. has developed 25 English-based proprietary dictionaries in 13 languages that are free of charge to users who have bought the software. These dictionaries have between 50,000 to 150,000 terms, and use a morphology engine that can recognize words in different conjugations and inflections. As well as its own dictionaries, Babylon has over 1200 reference works that are free of charge to Babylon users. These include general and technical dictionaries and monolingual glossaries. These titles span over 60 languages and are indexed under 400 categories covering subjects such as arts, business, computer, health, law, entertainment, and sports. Many of them have been compiled and submitted by Babylon users. All may be accessed free of charge on the Babylon Online Search pages [1]. Babylon Ltd. has also partnered with publishers of dictionaries and encyclopedias, such as Oxford University Press, Merriam-Webster, Encyclopædia Britannica, Larousse, Langenscheidt, Van Dale, Melhoramentos, and Taishukan. Dictionaries from these publishers can be bought for an additional fee and used with Babylon software.

Since 2006 Babylon provides access to a static version of Wikipedia in thirteen language versions (Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish). Babylon displays the first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry, and gives users a direct link to the entire article on Wikipedia.org. As well as its translation product, Babylon Ltd. offers a free translation box to webmasters and affiliates. Babylon has also developed and offers an information retrieval product for the business market.

Program History and Controversy

The concept of Babylon began in 1995 with Amnon Ovadia who had the idea of creating an English-Hebrew dictionary that did not interrupt the reading process. The company was founded in 1997 by Ovadia and Shuki Preminger, with the financial backing of Mashov Computers (now Formula Vision Technologies Ltd).^[1] and filed a patent for its innovative translation approach that same year.^[2]^[3] Babylon quickly grew to be considered among a select group of innovative software companies such as ICQ. The year after its launch date in 1998, the company boasted some 2 million users, mostly in Germany and Brazil^[4], growing from 420,000 to 2.5 million users over that year. By 2000, the company claimed over 4 million users ^[5]and the program was ranked among the most popular downloads by ZDnet France, AOL Germany, and Tucows, among others.^[6] Financial trouble brought instability to the company in the early 2000s. In the spring of 2000, Babylon Ltd. failed to raise $20 million in a private placement, which ended the company's hopes of launching an IPO for the company. Also, in 2000 Babylon Ltd. lost NIS 15 million.^[7] Further stress came with the collapse of the Dot-com bubble. In 2001, Babylon Ltd. continued shedding money, with the company costing its parent company Formula Vision NIS 4.7 million.^[8] As a result of financial losses, the company moved from a freeware to payware model, which led to some user complaint about undermining the 'spirit of the internet'.^[9] Also, in earlier adware versions, the company attached the controversial Cydoor component (often considered spyware) to the software.^[10] Versions up to 4.0 were found to be tracking users.^[11] Recent versions do not include spyware.