ROK Launch 'BabelBar' Multi-Language Translation Service for Enhanced Internet Accessibility and Usability on a Global Scale

Fri 11th May 2012

BabelBar is ROK’s highly innovative multi-language text-to-speech translation toolbar, currently compatible with Firefox and Safari internet browsers, designed to overcome the inherent language barriers of social media and the internet as a whole.

ROK Global PLC, the technology, applications and services company, has announced the launch of the ‘BabelBar’ service which enables universal multi-language audio and text translation of website content.

Free to download from www.babelbar.com and, shortly, from the Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome online shops, BabelBar currently provides a 20 language text and audio translation service, with more languages to follow. 

The 20 languages currently provided by BabelBar include English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Dutch, Czech, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Korean. 

The name BabelBar was chosen from an amalgam of ‘Babel’ (defined as ‘noisy confusion’) and ‘bar’ because the application is a browser-based toolbar.

Babelbar is free to use and will be funded through advertising in due course.

Commenting on the launch, Jonathan Kendrick, Chairman of ROK said “The internet as a whole is not universally accessible and usable - and neither are individual websites - because of inherent language barriers and, with Facebook nearing 1 Billion users worldwide and with internet adoption increasing at an explosive pace in developing countries in particular, the ability to have the text on any website, anywhere in the world, read aloud to the visitor and to be translated in subtitles, in their own language, is a hugely compelling and exciting development. Everyone believes social network sites to be global but in reality, they are only global if everyone understands the language people are conversing in. We believe BabelBar is the most advanced and innovative application available for this purpose and, as such, we believe BabelBar has the potential to be adopted on a massive scale by internet users globally.”

BabelBar has been developed by ROK to understand many of the popular social media abbreviations in use, to include the understanding and translation of such words as ‘LOL’ and ‘ROFL’ and the smiley/sad faces used to convey emotions.

BabelBar will be promoted by ROK to technology-focused user groups around the world to encourage a virally-driven mass adoption of the service.

“While our development team and the focus groups they have worked with in the build of BabelBar show it to be a very cool and fun application, there are further and more practical benefits of BabelBar which include an increase in the accessibility and usability of the internet to those with visual impairments and those with severe dyslexia as well as serving an educational  purpose for those learning a second language.” Added Kendrick.

ROK Global PLC was co-founded by US Billionaire John Paul DeJoria and UK-based serial entrepreneur Jonathan Kendrick. In addition to being the co-founder of ROK, John Paul DeJoria is Chairman of John Paul Mitchell Systems, the  manufacturer of Paul Mitchell hair care products as well as being the co-founder of Patron Tequila, the world’s leading premium tequila brand. 

ROK has pioneered a portfolio of new technologies and services including high quality mass-market Mobile TV which can be streamed, live and  on-demand, over mass-market 2.5G GPRS as well as 3G and Wi-Fi, several mobile security technologies which it licenses to law enforcement agencies and a suite of cutting-edge industrial technology products. 

More information: 

www.rokglobal.com
www.babelbar.com 

Safe Harbor Statement: The statements contained herein which are not historical are forward- looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward- looking statements, including, but not limited to, certain delays beyond the company's control with respect to market acceptance of new technologies or products, delays in testing and evaluation of products, and other risks detailed from time to time.

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