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Bilingual Net browser developed
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CHINA has developed the world's first Chinese-English Internet browser, which was unveiled on Monday in Beijing.
The browser, capable of translating Chinese into English and vice versa, was developed by Pacific CyberTrans (Beijing) Technologies Co, a joint venture between Chinese software developer Huajian Group Co, and the Pacific Century CyberWorks Limited (PCCW) of Hong Kong tycoon Richard Li Tzar-kai.
The browser, to be soon released in China, enables Chinese Internet users who cannot read English to exploit the vast English-language information on the Net, which accounts for 70 per cent of all information available on the Internet.
English-speaking people who cannot read Chinese, on the other hand, can also read the information written in Chinese on the Net.
Using the browser, whose language translation accuracy is over 80 per cent, people can also translate emails.
Lu Yongxiang, president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which owns the Huajian company, said the browser overcomes the language barrier for Chinese-speaking and English-speaking people, which will boost the number of subscribers to the Internet in China.
Richard Li Tzar-kai said the browser will enable more Chinese to better understand the world over the Net.
The Internet will also be an effective channel for English-language speakers to know more about China's culture, which has a history of about 5,000 years.
Wilson Tse, general manager of the CyberTrans company, said retail prices for the browser has not yet been finalized, but it will be affordable.
He said a copy for commercial users is likely to cost about 200 yuan (24 US dollars).
The company valued at 100 million yuan (US$12 million), is 51 per cent owned by the PCCW, which contributed 51 million yuan as startup capital.
Meanwhile, Huajian, whose independently developed browser technology valued at 49 million yuan was converted into technology capital, holding the remaining 49 per cent of the shares.
As the world's dominant researcher and developer in machine or intelligent Chinese-English translation, Huajian has developed the world's first Chinese-English machine translation system IMT/EC capable of translating a whole sentence and the world's first Chinese-English translation machine.(Xinhua)
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