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Microsoft Demos Skype Translation Tool Coming Later This Year [Updated]

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At today's Re/code Code Conference in Ranchos Palos Verdes, California, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Skype chief Gurdeep Singh Pall demoed an real-time language translation tool) that has been built into Skype.

During the demonstration, Pall conducted a conversation with a German-speaking colleague, with Skype providing real-time translation from German to English and vice versa. According to German speaking audience members at the conference, the translation software performed "pretty good" but not perfectly.

nadellapall.jpg
Nadella and Pall demo Skype Translator at the Code Conference​
Skype Translator results from decades of work by the industry, years of work by our researchers, and now is being developed jointly by the Skype and Microsoft Translator teams. The demo showed near real-time audio translation from English to German and vice versa, combining Skype voice and IM technologies with Microsoft Translator, and neural network-based speech recognition.
Click to expand...
Microsoft hopes to use the huge number of conversations that take place on Skype to improve its translation tools with real language and speech patterns, which could lead to much better back and forth translations. Pall says the company is "working through" potential privacy issues that surround the use of customer calls.

While Microsoft plans to debut Skype Translate on the Windows platform later this year in a beta capacity, the company says that it will expand to other platforms, including OS X and iOS, shortly after the Windows version launches.
Microsoft will start with a handful of languages and only for the Windows version of Skype, though Microsoft hopes to quickly add more languages as well as support for the many types of computers and mobile devices that Skype customers use.
Click to expand...
At launch, the Skype translator will only work with a small number of languages, those that "it can do well" but Microsoft has plans to continually add additional languages to the app as development progresses.

​
Update: The full video of the demo has been released by Re/code and available above.

Article Link: Microsoft Demos Skype Translation Tool Coming Later This Year [Updated]
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/05/27/microsoft-demos-skype-translation-tool/
So...basically they're going to secretly record our conversations to help "improve" this translation service?


Edit: Reminds me of IBM's Watson, combining this translation tech with Cortana and Watson would be pretty crazy.
 
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Learning a new language will still be relevant, but man, this tech is cool. Huge possibilities in education.
 
now we're getting close to a Universal Translator, though I continue to hold that you haven't heard Shakespeare until you have heard it in its original Klingon.
 
Well played by Nadella. Less focus on his interview as everyone is talking about this. I'm still wondering what Federighi and Cue are going to talk about since they're not going to give away any WWDC stuff.
 
Jesus. I mean, for once it's immediately very obvious how such a thing could be done, but WOW. This is SO FREAKING INSANE. And maybe a little scary.
 
*stiligFox's eyes sparkle as his Universal Translator dreams are coming true*

Knowing Skype it'll be a buggy mess, but hopefully it'll be worth it!
 
Santabean2000 said:
Learning a new language will still be relevant, but man, this tech is cool. Huge possibilities in education.
Click to expand...

Heh, I remember in college (okay... this was like 3 years ago lol) we had foreign partners and used Skype to talk to them in their and our languages. I'm thinking this might make that tricky XD
 
lotzosushi said:
So...basically they're going to secretly record our conversations to help "improve" this translation service?
Click to expand...

I'm guessing that's highly unlikely -- I'm sure it will be an opt-in type of thing if Microsoft even chooses to go in that developmental direction. No company wants to be accused of collecting unnecessary customer data on the down low after PRISM.
 
2015, the year when people don't talk face to face anymore, even when in the same building
 
MacRumors said:
[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]


At today's Re/code Code Conference in Ranchos Palos Verdes, California, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Skype chief Gurdeep Singh Pall demoed an real-time language translation tool) that has been built into Skype.

During the demonstration, Pall conducted a conversation with a German-speaking colleague, with Skype providing real-time translation from German to English and vice versa. According to German speaking audience members at the conference, the translation software performed "pretty good" but not perfectly.

ImageNadella and Pall demo Skype Translator at the Code Conference​
Microsoft hopes to use the huge number of conversations that take place on Skype to improve its translation tools with real language and speech patterns, which could lead to much better back and forth translations. Pall says the company is "working through" potential privacy issues that surround the use of customer calls.

While Microsoft plans to debut Skype Translate on the Windows platform later this year in a beta capacity, the company says that it will expand to other platforms, including OS X and iOS, shortly after the Windows version launches.At launch, the Skype translator will only work with a small number of languages, those that "it can do well" but Microsoft has plans to continually add additional languages to the app as development progresses.

Article Link: Microsoft Demos Skype Translation Tool Coming Later This Year
Click to expand...

Apple should similarly develop FaceTime, and release it with translation functionality.
 
Many years ago I wrote an AppleScript for the ircle IRC client that queried Google Translate in the background and enabled "live" translation of private IRC conversation (it wasn't fast enough to deal with the whole channel feed.)

Had some fun with it chatting with people from all over the world, though Google Translate was very bad back in the days, which lead to funny results! :)
 
If this is as bad as the Bing translations they provide for Facebook forget it. Those have literally provided heinous and erroneous things to be added to my wife's timeline that you can't remove without deleting a perfectly legitimate post. If someone chooses to click that translate button they can get a very wrong idea and there is nothing you can do.
 
The pendulum swings. Microsoft has done more progressive soul searching and innovation in the last 6 months than Apple has in the last 6 years.
 
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