RantNetwork is a Bloomsburg-based startup that has developed a unique mobile language translation service that works as a Blackberry application and functions in real time.
The company, founded in 2006, has created a device it calls a 'Communilator', the first mobile phone language translation application capable of reading and translating foreign text, such as books, posters, and menus. It also does it in more than 50 languages and 3,000 language pairs. It also supports image translation: subscribers can snap a picture of a foreign road sign or a restaurant menu with their phone and within seconds receive a text message translation into the language of their choice. The application also can send and receive SMS and email translations and post translations to Twitter and Facebook.
Because the application is not housed on the mobile phone but instead connects to RantNetwork servers that are integrated with dozens of language translation engines, you get results in a matter of seconds.
Targeting international business, travel and global social networking uses for the legal, medical and academic sectors, RantNetwork is expanding marketing and development initiatives related to the Communilator thanks to a $50,000 funding from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania in early 2011. Just prior, the company had signed an exclusive contract with Etihad Etisalat for the distribution of its Arabic version of the Communilator in Saudi Arabia through the mobile phone operator Mobily.