The future of translation - courtesy of Microsoft Research

[SuperPlay]

The future of translation

Microsoft Research shows a promising new breakthrough in speech translation technology

http://blogs.technet.com/b/next/archive/2012/11/08/microsoft-research-shows-a-promising-new-breakthrough-in-speech-translation-technology.aspx#.UJ-VdIbRV6Y

[turboswimbz]

neat.

[SignOfZeta]

Aside from the algorithmic improvements he meantioned (which I'm sure are significant) I'm having a hard time understanding what's so applause-worthy or new here.

My Mac (I'm only talking about Macs here because they are what I know, I'm not advocatting any OS so don't give me any shit for owning a Mac here) can already recognize my speach, translate that speach, and speak it in the new language...and this is just a current gen consumer product. It's not stitched together like this, but it does all those things, built into the OS, so I'm sure you could just write a script that does what was seen in this presentation. I assume Windows does the same thing.

Maybe they are just happy because he's doing the demo in/for Chinese?

[SuperPlay]

it is indeed the algorithmic improvements that are epic rather than the linkage.  Also the ability to include your voice style into the translated speech is a forward move (rather than bog standard computer voice playback).

Windows 7 has voice recognition included as stock which is not too bad.  However I am not sure if this inbuilt version can translate between languages like the mac can.

I am just overall impressed how speech recognition (and translation) has improved over the years.

[SignOfZeta]

That computer voice sounds nothing like that dude, IMO.

[SuperPlay]

Still an improvement of my first experience of speech ;-)


I managed to get hold of a copy of this app for the BBC Micro back in 1986/87. I was mesmerized at the time and spent hours just messing around.