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SKYPE HAS REVEALED a new real-time language translator feature which allows two people speaking different languages to communicate.
Skype Translator, which is being developed jointly by the Skype and Microsoft Translator teams. allows you to talk in your native language to another user who speaks a different language.
Skype then automatically translates what the person said into the other person’s native language.
At the Code Conference in California, Microsoft demoed the technology by translating a video call from English to German and vice versa.
The technology is the result of more than a decade’s worth of work from the company’s research division, mainly achieved through a technique called Deep Neural Networks, which is patterned after human behaviour.
Speaking at the conference Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella said that one of the more fascinating developments from the project was its ability to learn a language, even when it was being taught another language.
The one fascinating feature of this is something called ‘transfer learning’ and what happens is you teach it English, it learns English. Then you teach it Mandarin, it learns Mandarin, but it becomes better at English. And then you teach it Spanish and it gets good at Spanish but it becomes great at both Mandarin and English, and quite frankly none of us know exactly why. It’s brain-like in the sense of its capabilities.
(Video: Microsoft)
The company plans to make the feature available as a Windows 8 app first before the end of the year. The company did not say when the feature would see an official release.
The service has more than 300 million monthly active users globally and sees more than one billion instant messaging sessions every month, according to Microsoft.
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And i thought dotor dolittle was cool, Wow technology has come so far its great to see!
It won’t work with drunk Scotish people
Or sober Scottish people!
Sober Scotts?
It’s not easy to say “Sober Scotts” when you’ve had a skinfull
You’re right Graham, what was I thinking?
Could lead to some very interesting conversations if the technology suffers the same sort of issues as predictive text..
Excellent now we Will be able to understand Cork and Meath Langers
Lieutenant Uhura switch on the universal translator.
great can we drop Irish now?
Babel fish.
Yep! Imagine a group chat in English Irish French German etc. No need for the European Parliament gathering in Strassburg or Brussels. They can all discuss on Skype in real time.
Finally we will be able to understand boggers from Cork and Kerry.
Finally, we’ll be able to understand skangers from Dublin as well as Dortspeak.
Yoo like!
Eoe..zaming!
A nice new tool for the NSA…….
http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/dd395-NSA-site.jpg
If it speaks to you then it’s an interpreter. If it shows the text on the screen then it’s a translator. Get your terminology right, tech companies!
They (companies in general) can’t even seem to develop wholly reliable English/English speech to text software yet (if they have, I’d like to know as I’m deaf and could use it – not one you can’t use without training with everyone’s voice)
Even google messes up most spoken search commands (but it’s far better than stuff available just a few years ago)
It’d be cool if they did develop this for Skype though
So MS revolutionized communication by developing a universal translator? I seriously doubt it is true
Not universal as they said nothing about Kligon yet .
Will there be one in the goggle yoke mentioned earlier on da journal?
Such a gimmick. Everybody is going to be pratically fluent in English in a few years. The lingua franca is here already.
Useful I Suppose for Mandarin. Might be better than Chinglish.
It’s probably easier to speak English than for a Spaniard and a Chinese person to use this sofware.
It’s a bit like bad dubbing. The real voice conveys nuance and emotion like sarcasm etc.
Paul, your missing the big picture.
With this there will be no need for people to learn English, so this will actually suppress the learning of a second language. Also TV shows can be translated live, without the need for dubbing and voice overs. hence people will be less exposed to foreign languages.
Think of the last word for example, this could broadcast around europe and people will listen to Matt in English and can dial in, speak in their native tounge and will be heard in our local tounge.
Does it translate Kerry as well?
have your say