Slashdot Mirror
Wearable Translators
johnwebster writes "Another Sci-Fi utility gets closer to reality:
wearable translators." Babelfish, Earth-style, so you too can speak any language fluently: For example: what would you say of translator wearable of language when on a foreign execution? No fumbling for a book of expressions, any cumbersome portable computer. This mobile and light device now placed by ONR is really a flexible device, computer of girdle-model - not larger than a package fanny - making it possible the language of the speaker to be translated in the real time near for the listener. Excellent.
The article, in Eng -> German -> French -> English on babelfish
One of much of sectors which supports the office of the search for navy, is that of the data processing. The study in this sector covers, the cognitive stages and to perceive neuralen organization, with an accent on the units under development for military operations. P. E.G.: how on a translator wearable if on a transaction from abroad? No Fumbling for sentence a book, not of vast computers of lap-signal. A flexible device, the computer of kind - not more largely as fanny a sentence - is true allowing this mobile and compact unit which is financed now by ONR, that the language of the loudspeaker is translated into narrow Istzeit for the years zuh50rer. Moreover, it to translate, however could not a right word for word include/understand the context, in which a designation or Idiom is used, to influence the translation resulting. It would be able piles of list; p. ex. " cliqueter " is to the soldiers to measure distance, while with civil it be a short clay. By having it the list of soldiers which is piled up on the standard list, the system can fix a suitable translation for the circumstances of the person in charge. The software is currently developed, to translate Korean, bosniaques, Arab, more siamesischer and Chinese of tangerine, as well as the European hauptsaechlichsprachen. A worn translator would not encourage only the soldiers but also of the personnel of airport, it that edge patrouilliert and customs officers, Telefonbediener and tourists, under others.
... someone will find a way to hack into my translator, and it will utter the equivalent of:
"I want to fondle your bum."
when I try to make a purchase in a shop.
- Mike
I used to study linguistics. It is very interesting, but also makes you feel very humble. Human language has far more subtleties than most people credit it with. It is true that if you're a Chomskian, you will tend to see languages as more similar than different (the opposite of most non-academic views). However, even if you do believe in Universal Grammar and all that the idea entails, it has to be said that there are some fundamental difficulties in machine translation. As I'm not in the field, I don't know if they've been solved yet, but I imagine they haven't reconciled the:
1) Differences in language syntactic structure. How do you reconcile a VSO language with an OSV language and still maintain real-time processing? More specifically, if, in, say, language 1 one would form a sentence like "John buys milk" (Subject-Verb-Object, like English) but in lanuguge two you would say "buys milk John", how do you begin to immediately translate, word for word, when the words are not in the same order? Answer is, you don't. The longer and more clausal the sentence gets, the more or a problem this becomes. This assumes the translator is going to have to decide where to pause so it can rearrange the sentence, parse and translate it. This is fine, except that:
2) Natural speech doesn't necessarily follow the same rules as written language. So the speaker many not speak in nice, neat, parseable chunks. So the translation machine has to start making some decisions. For the benefit of the doubt, let's say that we're going to pause nicely after each complete sentence to let the translator do its work. You still have the problem of:
3) Context. A.k.a. the "frame" problem (to some degree, though not exactly). Computers have no context w/ regards to language (they have no actual experiential knowledge of meaning), and thus have no concept of relevance (if you believe in Relevance theory pragmatics). They have no basis upon which to "guess" at word meaning or pull meaning out of inferential utterances -- no basis which to understand sarcasm, humor, hyberbole, or anything your lit professor taught about -- and here's the kicker folks, all of that plays a role in figuring out meaning, which is usually the tiebreaker in any case of:
4) Ambiguity. Wonder why Babelfish only works half the time? Because idiomatic expressions exist. Because words are ambiguous -- one word can have multiple meanings and multiple words can mean the same thing. One word can have different meanings to different people. (BTW, if you want to explode your head, just *begin* to study semantics).
This will probably be another "nobody will ever need more than 16k of RAM" quote, but I think we'll have a hell of a time getting machine translation up to human standards until the machine is thinking for itself. Not that i'm arguing it can't be done, it's just not as straightforward as L&H, or IBM, or the Office of Naval Research would have you believe.
just my blog and pix
I tried to use babel fish for a spanish project in my highschool. Big fucking mistake, it turned out to be pure gibberish and I got a big fat F.
I can see people who are too lazy to learn another language getting into all kinds of sticky situations.
CIA agent pulling a gun on a foreign criminal: FREEZE MOTHER FUCKER OR I'LL BLOW YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF!!!
What the foreigner hears: Would you like a new puppy?
George Dubya talking with the president of france (he's to stupid to learn another language): I would like to build a STRONG relationship of compassion between our two natIONS. I want to help execute and build military ties with you.
What the french president hears: I think we are going to take strong military action against the nation of france. And I am going to have you executed.
Scary stuff.
----------------------------------
Reading and posting on Slashdot am I from Klingon homeworld through wearable universal translator device, operating with optional subspace radio module and speech-too-text and text-too-speech technology. Device excellent is it, but a day very good two die had better it bee for Michael, because has he insulted are honor through him saying that was this device invented by humans.
The Assayer - free-information book reviews
Find free books.