

Google Translate API is now deprecated. - Klonoar
http://code.google.com/apis/language/translate/overview.html

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po
Wow, that is unexpected. I can think of a lot of developer tools that use
google translate to give a rough first translate. Things like Wordpress and
web framework plugins. It seems like they should have just dropped a fee
structure on top of it and that would eliminate abuse.

If any developers out there are looking for a new API to target, you could
consider mygengo. It's not free (because it isn't machine translation), but
they do have developer tools and an API available:
<http://mygengo.com/services/api/>

~~~
Klonoar
Full disclosure: I currently work with myGengo.

That said, we definitely welcome developers to our services. I just wanted to
take a second to note this for any Python developers interested in our
services, though - if you don't like the supplied Python library (I didn't), I
wrote a new more concise and documented version. It's easier to follow and
extend, and has some functions to help with encoding/decoding characters.

We're considering adopting this as the main Python library in the near future.
Always interested in input from other developers!

<https://github.com/ryanmcgrath/pygengo>

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fun2have
All I can say is give Micorsoft a try:
<http://www.microsofttranslator.com/dev/>

~~~
simonl
Thanks for the hot tip. And now here's my python wrapper for the Microsoft
Translate API (bing) -- <https://github.com/s29/mstranslate>

No limits, seemingly comparable translation quality. The API was a bit
annoying, but hey no surprise there. Thanks Microsoft!

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corin_
A little more discussion on Google APIs being killed at
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2589635>

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esrauch
It's interesting that the reason for this is 'extensive abuse', does anyone
know if it is talking about the 'translate party' websites that translate back
and forth in rapid succession.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
That seems unlikely - there aren't too many, they don't make that many calls,
and Google could just shut them down.

I think <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2590551> (andymurd) presents a
more likely explanation:

> I think the "abuse" they are referring to is the common practise among
> blackhats of using Google Translate to spin stolen content to make it
> unique. Translating English -> $LANGUAGE -> English makes for a cheap, low
> grade article rewriter.

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franze
here is my comment on the google code blogpost
[http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2011/05/spring-cleaning-
for-s...](http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2011/05/spring-cleaning-for-some-of-
our-apis.html?showComment=1306481143396#c3564212561169948866)

i recommend posting your disappointment there, too - as google obviously does
not care about developers anymore (and so does also not care about hacker news
discussions)

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jonnycat
This is a bit of a slap in the face -- could they not rate limit the service
and charge for it?

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aghilmort
At least one developer is very upset about Google Translate API change:
[http://groups.google.com/group/google-ajax-search-
api/browse...](http://groups.google.com/group/google-ajax-search-
api/browse_thread/thread/da649803321d338d?hl=en)

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icco
Wow, this sucks. One of the reasons I historically haven't been worried about
Google and some of the "evils" that people argue they are guilty of, is
because they provide awesome APIs for developers free of charge and with next
to no rate-limiting or authentication.

This is a slippery slope for Google. Why should I build applications on top of
their products, if I know that the API can be ripped out from under me?

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gmosx
Recent developments in the 'Google Platform' front (new App Engine price
structure, API shutdowns, crippled Google Apps Standard offering, etc)
severely dented my belief on a "full cloud" future. Perhaps we shouldn't
outsource (== depend) too much to cloud vendors.

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tybris
Darnit Google. Can't you keep any API running for more than 2 years? Just take
a hint from AWS and sell them!

