The applet is using a Java-based server that uses the artificial intelligence research language WildLife to translate the LaTeX. It would be quite easy to take the resulting OpenMath and translate it into many forms, and even to feed it to Maple directly.
WildLife is quite slow, but we have discovered ways to make a large part of the translation process deterministic. We are hoping to therefore rewrite large parts of the system in faster languages. Conversion, in this version, can also be a little unreliable. For instance, the present translator has problems deciding when f(x) is f multiplied by x, or f applied to x. More sophisticated versions of the system will use a combination of artificial intelligence and/or hints from humans to ensure a better translation.
We will soon have systems in place which will dynamically translate LaTeX documents directly into activated mathematical text, much like that found in the Organic Math Proceedings. Such information could be fed to any of our distributed services