The BabelFish web service is now working! Looks like they have implemented the policy file for Flash developers. Check it out (Flash Player 7 required):
Here are the source files. For more info, see the original post.
UPDATE: Looks like this still doesn’t work in Mozilla! Is this a player problem, the new security policy, or something else? Please leave a comment if you find anything (I’m too busy to look into this right now).
14 replies on “BabelFish web service works!”
bah humbug. machine translations are awful. “you must be kidding” is xlated to “vous devez badiner” and when roundtripped becomes “you owe badiner”. bah humbug.
Perhaps we should have a competition to see who can find the funniest reversed translations!
That’s great that xmethods put that policy file in. It’s gonna really open up Flash development for the common man.
Are there man other web services out there like babel fish that anyone can use? I am pretty new to web services, but have been doing some Flash development for a little while now, so I am curious where is a good place I can learn more about web services so later I can integrate them with Flash?!
Here are a few sources:
http://www.xmethods.net/
http://www.flash-db.com/services/
http://wsdlfeeds.com/feeds/
Amazon.com has one, IBM and Microsoft also have some links (but most are not free).
In most cases, you need the service provider to place a policy file at their server root. Or if you figured out a redirection proxy that works, please let us know.
Thanks Dave!
Can you point me at a web service that you know doesn’t have the policy file so that I can test a re-direction proxy?
That’s really cool! For your app usability, make the original text textfield multilines and wrap 🙂
Hi Dave,
I don’t think this is working. The URL
“http://services.xmethods.net:80/perl/soaplite.cgi”
cannot be found.
Andrew
I’ve also heard from another source that this is not working, even in Windows Internet Explorer. I have no idea why, even though most people report they have no problem with it.
Perhaps for those who are having problems, could you list your hardware and software specs such as: OS version, firewall (hardware and/or software such as ZoneAlarm), connection to the Internet (dialup, DSL, cable…etc.), browser and Flash player version?
There are some notes on this issue (mozilla vs. IE w/crossdomain policy files) on the following thread: http://www.flash-db.com/Board/index.php?board=9&action=display&threadid=6052&start=0
I think the Babelfish web service has been taken down by Altavista.
Maybe there were so many web services programming howtos that used it as a canonical example that it got overused :-).
XMethods does not list it anymore.
Does anybody know if it is truly gone?
If anyone knows of a Babelfish web services demo that really works can you verify it and post how to use it here?
Thanks!
Update from xmethods.net:
IMPORTANT NOTE: Our own access to the Altavista Babelfish data has been terminated, so this web service has been disabled. The service will remain down indefinitely until a suitable replacement translation engine can be found.
Have you found a replacement translation engine to replace the previous one, so this webservice can be re-activated?
No I haven’t looked. Just did a search on: “google translate api” and found some links, not sure if they’re useful yet.