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Papago

Papago, a free artificial intelligence (AI) translation service by Naver, was officially launched on July 19. The launch is expected to result in competition heating up between Google and Naver in the AI translation field.

“On July 19, we will be updating the Papago app to increase the maximum text volume to be translated at a time from 200 characters to 5,000 characters,” Naver announced on July 18. The 5,000-character limit is equal to that on Google Translate.

To date, Papago, which launched its beta service in Aug. 2016, has reverted to statistically based translations once the 200-character limit is exceeded, resulting in a lower translation quality.

A PC-based version of Papago is also being launched the same day in response to strong demand for the translation of long academic and news articles in the PC environment. Papago uses neural network translation, a form of AI technology. The results are more accurate and natural than previous statistically based translations. Google launched its own AI translation service in South Korea in Nov. 2016.

By Ahn Seon-hee, staff reporter

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