Technology geeks across the world wide web are speculating that Twitter is about to add an automatic translation feature to its popular website.

The social media site Twitter has found phenomenal success in the past year. Its unique system of communication is based on Tweets — 140-character messages posted publicly and viewable by other people reading the user's profile or following the user in their "timeline."

Technology website AppScout drew readers' attention to a feature apparently being tested on Twitter's search engine, which allows users to find the most recent mentions of a key word or phrase.

The new feature gave users the option to filter search results by language, "from Arabic to Icelandic to Thai." It also included a button asking users to click to read the results in their "preferred language" of English.

Mark Hachman of AppScout said that, although there are already non-Twitter applications available to translate Tweets, it was the first time he had ever seen a native Twitter auto-translation function.

He predicted that with its introduction, along with other features, "the Twitter experience may radically change over the next few months."

Automated translation has been a hot topic in the web technology world recently, with Google leading the way in online real-time translation.

The internet giant moved its Chrome browser translation feature out of the Beta stage this month.

Launching the new feature, Google engineer Wieland Holfelder said, "Today, our translation technology works across 52 languages and can automatically detect and translate entire websites in less than a second."

28 March 2010