Finally I got some time to finish publishing this small update to the Translator. The update itself was finished several weeks ago but deployment was a little bit of a challenge.

Get the new Translator Here (Obtén el nuevo Traductor Aquí)

Let me quickly review the new features of this version:

1. Configurable Translation Engine. This is by far the main feature of this version. You can now choose your favorite translation engine among Google and Microsoft. Each of them have some features that the other lack (like Google being much more accurate, while Microsoft being able to handle larger texts) so it’s good to be able to choose!

2. Text To Speech now powered by Microsoft Bing. There was no public/supported API from Google, so I decided to try Microsoft’s one (which is supported and very well documented). Plus Microsoft’s engine supports a couple of more languages than Google.

3. The Translator is back in Windows Azure. Yes, I moved the previous version of the Translator away from Windows Azure and now I’m putting it back in there. This is because now I have a pretty long evaluation period of Azure, thanks to the Bizspark account I got a couple of months ago (thanks Microsoft!). Azure is a great choice for the Translator as I can host the application there, plus it’s backend WCF service and the SQL Server Azure DB that records some info for me. This will free some of the bandwidth that was being consumed in my shared hosting and allows me to see a real app in action in Windows Azure, which is pretty exciting!

That’s all for this minor revision. Still got tons of ideas for this app in the future, hopefully I get some time to work on them soon. All feedback is very welcome.

Enjoy!

Julio