SAN FRANCISCO & BEIJING--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Stepes, a language technology start-up that recently launched the world’s first chat-based translation app, has just filed patents in the United States and China for its mobile translation technology. The technology would allow translators around the world to work on translation projects directly from their smartphones using a mobile messaging or chat-like interface.
“Previous translation tools were desktop-based,” says Carl Yao, the pioneer behind Stepes. “With Stepes, anyone who is bilingual can now earn money for translation work – from waiting in line at the grocery store to sitting on the subway.”
The mobile app works like this: first, a large translation project gets divided up into smaller components and given to individual translators. Companies can view the profiles, ratings, and selected translation samples of Stepes’ translators, who come from a worldwide pool of 50,000+ translators assembled by Stepes’ partner site TermWiki.com.
Rather than presenting the entire chunk of text at once to be translated, Stepes feeds a text to translators line by line, which the translator then sends back translated before receiving the next line. The entire exchange looks exactly like a texting conversation between Stepes and the translator. Such a format allows translators to easily thumb back translations on a small screen.
“We needed a way to make translation easy on a small screen that is consistent with mobile user behaviors,” adds Yao. “Why not make it a texting conversation?”
Spurred by globalization and slower domestic consumer spending, companies and firms are seeking to expand their global market shares. Going global however, requires businesses to translate all of their products and interfaces into tens of different languages simultaneously. Stepes, and the emergence of various online human translation services, represents a shift in strategy among businesses.
“With the translation and localization industry predicted to grow to $38 billion by 2018, I see Stepes and the online translation industry in general becoming a massive area of growth as more and more companies require high-quality human translations of highly technical material at faster speeds,” continues Yao. “Stepes is just the first step.”
To learn more about Stepes’ mobile translation technology, please go here: www.stepes.com/mobile-translation/.
About Stepes
Stepes.com is the world’s first chat-based translation app. Stepes unlocks on-demand and accurate human translation services not yet witnessed from a mobile device. Stepes stands for Social Translation Experiment Project and Eco System and also refers to the Eurasian steppes, where the world’s 400 major languages originated from some 5,000 years ago. By seamlessly connecting businesses with the world’s linguists through its translation eco-system, Stepes helps break down language barriers between businesses and their customers and among nations and people.
