Press Release
February 14, 2011
Asian Expansion of Multilingual Service Infrastructure
- Federated Operation of the Language Grid Starts with NECTEC, Thailand -
- Federated Operation of the Language Grid Starts with NECTEC, Thailand -
National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (hereinafter called NICT, President: Hideo Miyahara) and Department of Social Informatics, Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University (Professor Toru Ishida) have started the federated operation of the Language Grid, a multilingual service infrastructure on the Internet, with the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center, Thailand (hereinafter called NECTEC, President：Pansak Siriruchatapong). (This alliance of multiple organizations to operate the Language Grid is called federated operation hereinafter.)
With this federated operation, users of the Language Grid and language resources from Asian countries are expected to increase, which is difficult to realize when the Language Grid is operated by a single organization within Japan. Moreover, Asian language services can contribute to the multicultural activities and international communications in Japan.
With this federated operation, users of the Language Grid and language resources from Asian countries are expected to increase, which is difficult to realize when the Language Grid is operated by a single organization within Japan. Moreover, Asian language services can contribute to the multicultural activities and international communications in Japan.
[Background]
NICT has been developing the Language Grid, a multilingual service infrastructure since April, 2006. In the Language Grid, translation software and general or special dictionaries created by language specialists, and community glossaries and parallel texts created by community users are registered as Web services. Language Grid users can freely combine these services for their requirements. The Language Grid has been operated by Department of Social Informatics, Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University for non-profit and research purposes, supporting multicultural activities in such fields as medical treatment, education, disaster prevention and the like. However, single operation within Japan has limitations to access international language resource providers. Therefore, most language services are about the languages of Japanese or English in current Language Grid. The Language Grid users are expecting the expansion of Asian language services for supporting multicultural activities in Japan.
[New Achievements]
NICT developed the Language Grid Composer enabling to connect different Language Grids, and built the federated operation model (Figure 1) together with Kyoto University with the aid of Strategic Information and Communications R&D Promotion Programme (SCOPE) of Japan. Moreover, concurrently with the launch of operation of the Language Grid by NECTEC, the federated operation of Language Grid started from January 2011, which enables sharing of multilingual resources and services among multiple Language Grids. Users in each Language Grid can use new language services by combining existing ones to satisfy their needs in both of each Language Grid. Although language services were shared among users within single Language Grid, it is the first case in the world for sharing language services among different multilingual service infrastructures by connecting them.
[Future Plans]
Language Grid software has been released as open source software. The Language Grid agreement is governed by, and interpreted in accordance with, the laws of the jurisdiction where the operator of the Language Grid is located. Therefore, NICT and Kyoto University will plan to expand the federated operation not only in the Asian area, but also in the European area in the future.
< Media Contact >
Strategic Planning Department
Public Relations Office
Sachiko HIROTA
Tel：+81-42-327-6923
Strategic Planning Department
Public Relations Office
Sachiko HIROTA
Tel：+81-42-327-6923
< Technical Contact >
Language Grid Project,
Knowledge Creation Research Center
Yohei Murakami
Tel：+81-774-98-6907
Language Grid Project,
Knowledge Creation Research Center
Yohei Murakami
Tel：+81-774-98-6907
Supplementary Information
< Language Grid Kyoto Operation Center and Bangkok Operation Center >
Department of Social Informatics, Kyoto University, has been operating the Language Grid since December, 2007. In the Kyoto Language Grid, 20 languages and 94 language services centered on Japanese and European languages are registered. On the other hand, NECTEC has been operating the Language Grid since last January. In the Bangkok Language Grid, 13 languages and 20 language services are registered, such as concept dictionary service, translation service, and text to speech service related to Asian languages.
< Multilingual Service Composition Over Different Language Grids >
The Language Grid Composer developed by NICT provides multilingual services to support foreigners from Asia by combining language services on Kyoto Language Grid and Bangkok Language Grid. For example, Japanese-English translation service specific to medical domain is realized by combining Japanese-English life science dictionary service and Japanese-English translation service on Kyoto Language Grid. Translation results of the composite service can be spoken in Thai by using English-Thai translation service and Thai text-to-speech service.
