Startup Hopes To Crowd-Source the Developing World

GalaticGrub writes "Technology Review has an article about a startup that wants to build a business out of crowd-sourcing the developing world. The company, called txteagle, seems to be interested mainly in using local knowledge to translate information into less common languages. The Finnish cell-phone company Nokia is a partner in the project, and CEO Nathan Eagle says that it provides a good example of a Western company that could benefit from txteagle workers. Eagle explains that Nokia is interested in 'software localization,' or translating its software for specific regions of a country. 'In Kenya, there are over 60 unique, fundamentally different languages,' he says. 'You're lucky to get a phone with a Swahili interface, but even that might be somebody's third language. Nokia would love to have phones for everyone's mother tongues, but it has no idea how to translate words like "address book" into all of these languages.'"

My hovercraft is full of eels

[14erCleaner]

What could possibly go wrong with this plan?

Babelfish

[tverbeek]

Nokia would love to have phones for everyone's mother tongues, but it has no idea how to translate words like "address book" into all of these languages.

Duh... use Babelfish.