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PC Mag article

[Newo1980]

February 10, 2011 10.03am EST
Say Hello to Ortsbo: Social Networking Goes Multiplatform and Multilingual
With support for 50 languages and 13 social networks, Ortsbo's real-time chat translation smashes language—and platform—barriers.
By William Fenton
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A free instant chat translator, Ortsbo, recently launched, giving jet-setting socialites real-time language translation in online chat. Available now as a beta, the free Web site enables users to converse across continents withsupport for more than 50 languages—from English to Arabic.
With Ortsbo, users can chat and translate in real-time across more than a dozen social-networking platforms. After registering for an Ortsbo account, you can choose from any or all of the available chat services. The site supports multiple services simultaneously, so you can chat with a Chinese friend on Tencent QQ, a German friend via MSN Messenger, and an American friend over Facebook Chat—all without ever leaving the page. Because it's fully automated, it's as simple as selecting your languages (input and translator) and chatting.
For e-mail enthusiasts, Ortsbo features a tool called Ortsbo Transl8tr, which lets users bid adieu to the Babelfish ballet. With the option to translate and e-mail text instantly, you can keep in touch with multilingual mates sans copy-and-paste. The company plans to bolster social network support and roll out further enhancements in the coming months.
"As we move forward, Ortsbo will expand its capabilities to e-mail, RSS feeds, casual and social gaming and other key areas of commercialization," said Ortsbo CEO David Lucatch. "With over 4 million active monthly users, Ortsbo is accelerating its growth and activities to all corners of the globe breaking down the language barrier."
Ortsbo isn't the only one chipping at the language barrier. Yesterday Google brought its officialGoogle Translate app to the iPhone, enabling users to "Speak to translate."