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Babylon (software)

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Babylon
Developer(s)Babylon Ltd.
Stable release
Windows11.0.1.6 / 22 June 2021; 3 years ago (2021-06-22)
Android4.1.2 / 16 December 2016; 7 years ago (2016-12-16)[1]
iOS2.0.1 / 14 February 2013; 11 years ago (2013-02-14)[2]
Windows Phone1.0 / 18 January 2012; 12 years ago (2012-01-18)[3]
Operating systemMicrosoft Windows
TypeDictionary, machine translator and spell checker
LicenseProprietary commercial software
Websitewww.babylon.com

Babylon is a leading global provider of language and search solutions, the Company operates in over 190 countries. Babylonis an Israeli public company (TASE: BBYL).[4] based in Or Yehuda.

History

In 1995, Israeli entrepreneur Amnon Ovadia began a project for an online English–Hebrew dictionary which would not interrupt the reading process. As a result, Babylon Ltd. was founded in 1997 and launched the first version of Babylon. On 25 September 1997, the company filed a patent for text recognition and translation.[5] In 1998, a year following its launch date, Babylon had two million users, mostly in Germany and Brazil,[6] growing from 420,000 to 2.5 million users in the course of that year. In the same year, Formula Systems, headed by Dan Goldstein, acquired Mashov Computers and became the largest shareholder in the company. By 2000, the product had over 4 million users.[7]In the spring of 2000, Babylon Ltd. failed to raise $20 million in a private placement and lost NIS 15 million.[8] 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.[9]

Since 2007, Babylon Ltd. (TASE: BBYL) has been a publicly traded company. Its IPO took place in February 2007; Israeli businessman Noam Lanir purchased controlling interests in the company for $10.5 million, sharing management with second majority shareholder Reed Elsevier[10] and the Company founder Amnon Ovadia. According to Globes magazine in January 2011, Lanir received an offer for his stake from a foreign private equity fund that valued the company at NIS 248 million (approximately 70 million dollars).[11]

In 2008–2009, Babylon reported earnings of NIS 50 million through its collaboration with Google. In 2010, Google Ireland signed an extended cooperation agreement with Babylon to provide it with online search and pay-per-click advertising services.[12]

Product features

A single click on any text using the right mouse button or combination of the right mouse button and a keyboard modifier, and the Babylon window appears providing a translation and definition of the clicked term.[13][14] Babylon is a tool used for translation and conversion of currencies, measurements and time, and for obtaining other contextual information. Babylon has a patented OCR technology and a single-click activation that works in any Microsoft Windows application, such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Excel, Internet Explorer and Adobe Reader. When activated, Babylon opens a small popup window that displays the translation or definition. Babylon provides full text translation, full Web page and full document translation in many languages and supports integration with Microsoft Office. Babylon enables the translation of Microsoft Word documents and plain text files. It offers results from a database of over 1,700 sources in over 75 languages.[15]

Dictionaries and encyclopedias

Babylon includes its in-house proprietary dictionaries, community-created dictionaries and glossaries (UGC), which include general and technical dictionaries, language and monolingual dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopedias and lexicons in every imaginable language. They are indexed in 400 categories covering the arts, business, computers, health, law, entertainment, sports and much more, representing a variety of levels and sources, from amateur to professional, from private to corporate.[16]

The program also uses a text-to-speech agent so users hear the proper pronunciation of words and text. Babylon Ltd. has developed 36 English-based proprietary dictionaries in 21 languages (English, Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish) that are free of charge to purchasers of the software. These dictionaries comprise between 60,000 to 200,000 terms, phrases, acronyms and abbreviations and are enabled with a morphological engine which facilitates recognition of all inflected forms of single words and phrases, provides all forms of terms that include prefixes and extensions and supplies a solution for all formats of writing. Babylon's Linguistic Department is responsible for the extensive and excellent content and information database which is a significant component of Babylon’s Product and is much appreciated by its users.[17]

Awards and recognition

In July 2011, Babylon won a Guinness World Record for the most downloads of a translation software.[18][19][20]

Malware issues

On 7 August 2010, Microsoft antivirus products identified the software application as malware (identified as "Adware: Win32/Babylon") due to potentially intrusive behavior.[21] Sixteen days later, on 23 August 2010, Microsoft announced that Babylon Ltd. had modified the program and that it was no longer categorized as malware.[22]

In 2012 the Babylon search toolbar was identified as a browser hijacker that, while very easy to install inadvertently, is unnecessarily difficult to remove afterwards.[23]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Babylon Translator". Google Play. Google. Retrieved 16 October 2016.
  2. ^ "iBabylon". iTunes Store. Apple. Retrieved 16 October 2016.
  3. ^ "Babylon Translator". Microsoft Store. Microsoft. Retrieved 16 October 2016.
  4. ^ Schultz, Fred (2000). Education 01/02. McGraw-Hill Higher Education. p. 204. ISBN 978-0-07-243317-3.
  5. ^ "Recognition and translation system". Google Patents. Google. Retrieved 16 September 2011.
  6. ^ "Babble on". Salon Media Group, Inc. 2 November 1999. Retrieved 16 September 2011.
  7. ^ Blackburn, Nicky (2002). "By The Users of Babylon". Formula Vision. Formula Vision Technologies Ltd. Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 18 September 2011. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  8. ^ Formula Vision Technologies
  9. ^ TheStreet.com : Formula Vision lost NIS 33.6 million in 2001 | TheMarker.com
  10. ^ Noam Lanir buys into Babylon, YNet
  11. ^ Ackerman, Gwen (19 January 2011). "Babylon Shareholder gets offer for majority stake, Globes says". Bloomberg. Retrieved 16 September 2011.
  12. ^ Babylon extends deal with Google, Globes, 26 December 2010
  13. ^ PC World. 19 (4–6): 123. 2001. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  14. ^ Huber, Jeffrey T; Boorkman, Jo Anne; Blackwell, Jean (2008). Introduction to reference sources in the health sciences. Neal-Schuman Publishers. p. 127. ISBN 978-1-55570-636-4.
  15. ^ "About Babylon – Simply Translate". Babylon Ltd. Retrieved 18 September 2011.
  16. ^ Free Dictionary Lookup by Babylon. Babylon.com (2001-08-02). Retrieved on 9 November 2010.
  17. ^ Stauber, Shuki. "Babylon – There's Nothing Like Experience". Jobs-israel.com. Retrieved 16 September 2011.
  18. ^ "Most downloaded desktop translation software". Guinness World Records. 22 June 2011. Retrieved 18 September 2011.
  19. ^ Israeli firm Babylon celebrates record number of downloads. Jerusalem Post
  20. ^ Translation co Babylon sets new Guinness record for downloads. Globes. Roy Goldenberg. 14 July 2011
  21. ^ "Definition change log for version 1.87.1429.0". Microsoft Malware Protection Center – Threat Research and Response. Microsoft corporation. 7 August 2010. Retrieved 11 August 2010.
  22. ^ "Encyclopedia entry: Adware:Win32/Babylon". Microsoft Malware Protection Center – Threat Research and Response. Microsoft corporation. 11 August 2010. Retrieved 23 August 2010.
  23. ^ "Babylon Search Hijacker". im-infected.com. 31 July 2012. Retrieved 07 November 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)

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