PDA Speech Translator

The problem with these things by the+man+with+the+pla · 2003-12-30 10:23 · Score: 3, Insightful

The problem with every software that I have used that tries to decipher human language (like Zork or the game included with emacs for X) is that you have to know what words the software understands and in what context.

I have seen the same problems with automated phone systems that are supposed to recognize a generic voice and I can see the same thing happening here.

The main difference here though, is that when entering text, you know exactly what you input before pressing enter. With voice recognition software, how do you know that the software "hears" exactly what you say? If you say somethign like "What are my appointments for the thirteenth?" and it hears, "What are my appointments for the thirtieth?" you would be receiving the wrong information.

I hope this is a success but I don't have my hopes up.

--
7329756

--
The linux hacker

Re:The problem with these things by garcia · 2003-12-30 10:27 · Score: 2, Insightful

My father has a 2004 Acura TL with Bluetooth cellphone stuff... He was trying to get it to dial a number. What a pain in the ass. It was seriously almost as distracting as hand entering the number. I believe he had to ask it to dial XXX-XXXX 5 or 6 times before it stopped adding in two random zeros.

Until the machines can be 100% accurate without frustration they are next to useless.
Re:The problem with these things by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:28 · Score: 1, Interesting

***I have seen the same problems with automated phone systems that are supposed to recognize a generic voice and I can see the same thing happening here.***

Yeah I see it all the time, we who have a SLIGHT southern twang in out accents give those voice command systems fits.
Re:The problem with these things by ackthpt · 2003-12-30 10:30 · Score: 1

The prototype falls short of Star Trek's fictional universal translator in several ways. What? How? ... no way!
How do you enter umlauts and other characters in Graffiti?
Hola! I would like some fried fathers!

--

A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Re:The problem with these things by jpmkm · 2003-12-30 10:37 · Score: 1

For an umlaut, first do a vowel, then do a w with a horizontal line attached(w-), and don't pick up the stylus between the w and the line.
Re:The problem with these things by shuz · 2003-12-30 10:43 · Score: 1

There are 3 main reason why this happens. Processing power and enunciation and possibly the quality of the microphone. The algorithm used to determin what numbers are being said is most likely based on common pronunciations of numbers. Dial is a pretty easy word to figure out because it starts with a 'da' sound and ends in a 'll' or 'el' sound. What happens in the middle doesn't matter too much. some numbers may be harder to figure out such as five which could be pronounced as fif fiva fiev ect. Also once a word has been recorded the algorithm uses statistical analysis to further figure out what was most likely said. So that if the word fiff was recorded the computer knows that its most likely not six because the Sss sound is not very close the recorded word. The processor has to do this statistical analysis in realtime which means the algorithm can only be run a few times on each word and a hit of only 70-80% may be ok. combine that by 7 to 10 words and you have yourself possible poor performance. Of course the microphone could have a lot of noise in it which just futher throws off calculations.

--
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
Re:The problem with these things by Angus+Prune · 2003-12-30 10:43 · Score: 3, Insightful

It all boils down to confidence. I have to be confident that what I'm doing will work.
I use a wireless keyboard but Im having to switch back because I find I have to check what I am typing because it doesn't always pick up every keypress
Voice to text are only of limited use while you have to re-read and correct any mistakes.
While this is only 80% accurate it can never be trusted. When this works at 95% it won't be trusted. I won't trust that this won't mistake Renal for Venal.

While this is a great step foward I can't see it being trustworthy for 2006 and I still think the same problems still apply to this as have always applied.
Re:The problem with these things by fastidious+edward · 2003-12-30 10:44 · Score: 1

I believe the solution may be:

"...device for translation of spoken languages in real-time communication. It operates by scanning brain-wave frequencies and using the results to create a basis for translation". A la the portable universal translator." More here.

Personally I'd prefer my own Ensign Hoshi.

--

karma karma karma karma karma chameleon, you come and go, you come and go.
Re:The problem with these things by fastidious+edward · 2003-12-30 11:07 · Score: 3, Insightful

It was seriously almost as distracting as hand entering the number.

Are you being sarcastic? I can type a number on a numeric keypad much faster than I can say it. The 5-6 times much more than compensates for the time of getting the phone out of my pocket.

Voice recognition is great, but tactile recognition is also great, as is body movement.

Until the machines can be 100% accurate without frustration they are next to useless.

I know I have trouble understanding someone with a heavy Southern-USA accent, like someone else may have trouble with a heavy Scottish accent (as firends have) or heavy London accent (as I can revert to), people are not perfect at understanding people, let alone machines understanding people.

Voice regognition is not a great saviour and IMHO is years away, in the meantime I'm happy with a numeric keypad.

--

karma karma karma karma karma chameleon, you come and go, you come and go.
Re:The problem with these things by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 11:23 · Score: 0

Yeah but compared to the miscommunication you'd get otherwise with hand gestures and mis-understood words? I've done some travelling, I know a little French and it can be really frustrating and worse in places where you only know a few basic words.

If it gets cheaper, I think it could be a big hit amongst the backpacker crowd or at international events. You could probably learn the language a lot faster too, which could potentially increase the overall number of languages people can speak or communicate in, which I think would be cool.
Re:The problem with these things by jonbryce · 2003-12-30 12:22 · Score: 1

Even with a word like dial, people will pronounce it differently in different places.

In the US, it will probably be something like deh-il, in England, it might be daah-il, in Scotland it might be dye-uhl
Re:The problem with these things by 110010001000 · 2003-12-30 14:12 · Score: 0

"With voice recognition software, how do you know that the software "hears" exactly what you say? If you say somethign like "What are my appointments for the thirteenth?" and it hears, "What are my appointments for the thirtieth?" you would be receiving the wrong information"

Good question. Well made applications provide feedback on the query. For instance, in this case the application would say back to you: "Your appointments on the THIRTIETH are...". You would then know that the information returned is not what you asked for.
Re:The problem with these things by shuz · 2003-12-30 15:35 · Score: 1

Right and I thought of that as I was posting. My point is that it starts with the same sounds and that the inside doesn't matter. Remember this peticular algorithm only has to identify a possible dial out of da and el so if I grunt da and then wait a second and grunt el the algorithm may just see that as dial. Something to experiment on I suppose.

--
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
Re:The problem with these things by Jordy · 2003-12-30 16:08 · Score: 1

In the US the midwest accent (most common) pronunciation of "dial" is dye-al.

"Dale" (a first name) is pronounced "deh-il."

--
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.

Re:Don't forget... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:23 · Score: 0

You know, I really admire your consistancy.

huh? by xie · 2003-12-30 10:24 · Score: 1, Redundant

The prototype falls short of Star Trek's fictional universal translator in several ways.

What? How? ... no way!

Re:huh? by ackthpt · 2003-12-30 10:26 · Score: 1

The prototype falls short of Star Trek's fictional universal translator in several ways.
What? How? ... no way!
Uhura: We get signal!
Kirk: What!?
I see what you mean.

--

A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Re:huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:35 · Score: 0

for one, i'd rather been seen with that hoshi chick on my arm than a pda in my hand! she's awfully purty!

Had to be said by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:24 · Score: 5, Funny

"All your base are belong to us!"

Re:Had to be said by valkraider · 2003-12-30 10:31 · Score: 1, Offtopic

Moderators, of which I have been one from time to time, need to do their research before modding. Or at least pay attention...

I was about to say "All your Base are belong to us!" when I saw this post. You see, moderators, the "All your base are belong to us!" comes from a poor translation of a video game - and poor translation is not OFF TOPIC. We are talking about a translating device - which would give us potential real world "All your base are belong to us!".

Mod parent up +1 funny, and +1 insightful (Too bad it is an AC posting)

Good Grief... by ackthpt · 2003-12-30 10:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

I could see this as a boon to the tourist who travels to places where English speakers are uncommon."

Spoken like someone who has never taken a foreign language class. Suppose that thing is going to get the accent right? Emphasis on the right syllable? Not likely, mostly good for translating some text message into the PDA holder's tongue (and doing an Engrish job of it anyway.)

--

A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar

Re:Good Grief... by UrgleHoth · 2003-12-30 10:27 · Score: 2, Funny

Reminds me of the joke:

What do you call someone who speaks three languages? A polyglot.
What do you call someone who speaks two languages? A bilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks one language? An American.

--

Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
Re:Good Grief... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:40 · Score: 0

What do you call someone who doesn't speak English?

Atavistic.
Re:Good Grief... by gl4ss · 2003-12-30 10:40 · Score: 1

yeh and I'd suppose that you alrady have been able to do that(rough text translation) for couple of years through online connectivity(no need for huge local dictionary)..

getting the right word for the context the word is in can be a real art in some languages as well(and no fucking way you'd be getting a spoken to spoken translation anytime soon on a full blown pc much less on a pda..)!

--
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Re:Good Grief... by NanoGator · 2003-12-30 10:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

"What do you call someone who speaks one language? An American."

I know it's a joke, but it's a common complaint aboout Americans. Unfortunately, nobody seems to think about the United States' geography and why most of us are uni-lingual. To the North, we have Canada, which is mostly english speaking. To the south, we have Mexico, which is Spanish speaking, but there's not all that much travelling back and forth like there is with Canada. Worse, they're very accomodating down there, so there isn't a big huge need to speak Spanish. Go much further south than that, and you're spending a great deal of money to get on a flight to do this. (I should know, I've traveled to Brazil twice.)

This is very different from Europe where you can drive across countries like we can drive across states here. Even if we were bilingual, there wouldn't be a huge screaming need to speak in other languages. It's hard to feel the need to speak other languages when you have to travel overseas to encounter somebody speaking that language.

Sadly, this factor is never considered. Nope, it's assumed we're just stupid.

--
"Derp de derp."
Re:Good Grief... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:57 · Score: 0

I suppose it boils down to, whatever country you're in:

1. Are you happy getting by?
2. Are you interested in the challencge a language can bring?

As you say 1 can lead to learning a second language. This can lead to 2. But we may never know.

IMHO Americans not learning Spanish is damn insular and imperialistic, they are your neighbour, not your slave, so why not put in some effort and try rather than assuming they are accomodating?
Re:Good Grief... by ackthpt · 2003-12-30 10:58 · Score: 1

yeh and I'd suppose that you alrady have been able to do that(rough text translation) for couple of years through online connectivity(no need for huge local dictionary)..
For the languages I already know I prefer to read without translation (German, Spanish, French) as it's good practice. The gaffes in translating are the limitation of the software, not the hardware.
getting the right word for the context the word is in can be a real art in some languages as well(and no fucking way you'd be getting a spoken to spoken translation anytime soon on a full blown pc much less on a pda..)!
The way the capacities of portable electronics are going I see no reason they couldn't, including local dialects and slang. Just get some people who know what they are doing to put it together. Most of what I see looks like textbook translations, i.e. what you get if you pick up a dictionary and do the words one at a time, though they do understand noun-adjective ordering for some languages. Knowing 'papas' from 'paPAs' takes the extra skill and effort.

--

A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Re:Good Grief... by Otter · 2003-12-30 11:01 · Score: 1

Suppose that thing is going to get the accent right? Emphasis on the right syllable?
Admittedly this thing isn't going to get you a job as the Tom Brokaw of Malawi or Laos. But when all you want is for someone to point the way to the beach or the presidential palace, this should certainly be adequate. It's not obvious how it's an improvement over a dictionary or phrasebook, though, except maybe that it gives you sentences.

--
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Re:Good Grief... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 11:01 · Score: 0

Well, what do you expect? English is the most common of only three languages in common use on the entire continent. In many areas of the US, you can travel a thousand miles in any direction without needing a second language. It's not like Europe, where a continent a fraction of the size of our country is host to dozens of languages.

As for the non-English areas in North America, most (bordering on "all") Quebecis speak English, and if their government dropped its rules on the primacy of French, it would be as Anglicized as the rest of Canada within a decade; and you can get by pretty well with English only in most of the tourist areas of Mexico.

(As a side note, this also applies to Michael Moore's idiotic criticism about Americans not having passports; the fact is, I can travel thousands of miles without even needing to show ID, much less an actual passport.)
Re:Good Grief... by ackthpt · 2003-12-30 11:03 · Score: 2, Insightful

I suppose it boils down to, whatever country you're in:
1. Are you happy getting by?
2. Are you interested in the challencge a language can bring?
As you say 1 can lead to learning a second language. This can lead to 2. But we may never know.
IMHO Americans not learning Spanish is damn insular and imperialistic, they are your neighbour, not your slave, so why not put in some effort and try rather than assuming they are accomodating?
Allow me to be cynical here. People cowtow to the language of commerce. If a lot of german people with a lot of money are visiting your town, you can bet people are learning german to be accomodating. This has much to do with why japanese, chinese, germans, belgians, dutch, italians, indians (asian) and even french, learn the language. The question is, with the blossoming of China's economy, will people turn to learn the business language of China?

--

A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Re:Good Grief... by NanoGator · 2003-12-30 11:16 · Score: 1

"IMHO Americans not learning Spanish is damn insular and imperialistic, they are your neighbour, not your slave, so why not put in some effort and try rather than assuming they are accomodating?"

It has nothing to do with being insular or imperialistic. To assume so is a bit ignorant. It has to do with how useful it is. I do, more or less, speak Spanish. I so rarely need it. Seriously, the most mileage I've gotten out of knowing any Spanish (outside of a trip to Brazil, where it was only a minor help as they speak Portuguese there) was the understanding a skit I saw on Mad TV.

Let's put this another way: Could you go an entire year without wearing shoes? You could, but you'd never dream of it. Why bother? You always have shoes, they always protect you. You have no dying need to have your feet harden from walking over gravel. How would you feel if I grouped you in with people who couldn't live without their precious shoes? You'd feel like I was a moron for making that distinction, and an even bigger one for not considering that you haven't run into a situation where you never have shoes.

Think about it.

--
"Derp de derp."
Re:Good Grief... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 11:32 · Score: 0

The way the capacities of portable electronics are going I see no reason they couldn't, including local dialects and slang. Just get some people who know what they are doing to put it together.
For someone who claims to know four languages, you sure are way off base about the difficulty of machine translation. The only reason I can come up with is that you must not be in any way familiar with the technical process behind translating and what is and isn't possible now.

When you translate from one language to another, it isn't a matter of matching one word to another, as you probably know. It also isn't a matter of matching one idiom to another. Translation beyond what Babelfish does requires context. And context requires either a form of AI (actually understanding what is written) or a huge amount of sample data from which to statistically determine the most likely path to take in translating each portion of a text (this is, in a sense, simulating an understanding of what is written). This route is what is taken now and it takes a lot of processing power to be able to come up with (somewhat) accurate and fast results. There is a LOT of room for improvement.

A computer has no way of determining if "sa soeur" in a given sentence means "his sister" or "her sister". It doesn't know if "krass" means "gross" or "awesome". It can't pick up things like sarcasm. If a sentence says "Sie ist zu lang", in reference to the word "Hose" in the previous sentence, how does the translation software figure out that "sie ist" should become "they are" when brought into English? And so on. These are just some basic things that pop into my head but it gets a lot more complicated than this.
Re:Good Grief... by kfg · 2003-12-30 11:45 · Score: 2, Insightful

. . .it's assumed we're just stupid.

No, not stupid, insular and parochial, an opinion which your own post supports.

Bear in mind though, that it is the behaviour of Americans in other countries that has engendered this reputation, most of whom don't even bother to take the trouble to learn how to say "please" and "thank you" in the language of the nation they're in at the moment.

My stepfather is in Mexico right now. He spends a minimum of three contiguous months a year there, a practice he has maintained for the past 30 years. One year he stayed there for nearly half of the year. He avoids the tourist places, staying in out of the way local cities and villages of the interior. He is not stupid man. He is a professional writer with a Masters in English from Harvard.

He knows maybe a dozen words in Spanish.

This is pure cultural arrogance.

It is also typical of American behaviour.

KFG
Re:Good Grief... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 12:04 · Score: 0

I want you to learn Latin. I don't know why -- you'll never need to use it -- its just so you can call yourself an intellect.
Re:Good Grief... by kfg · 2003-12-30 12:23 · Score: 1

I use it a good deal. A vast of body of literature is written in Latin and it forms the basis of much scientific language (nearly all serious scientific papers having been written in the language until not too long ago), not to mention being one of the ancestors of English.

I'm working on Classical Greek dialects as well for much the same reasons.

Then I intend to move on to Hebrew and Sanskrit. I think it will be worth the effort for the poetry alone.

I am already an intellect, that appears to have come with my birth. Now I'm becoming educated.

I figure your own level of ignorance is your own business though, unless you visit another country. Then it might behoove you to at least learn how to say "please" and "thank you" in a native tongue.

Come to think of it, it might not be a bad idea to learn how to say them in English. Civility never killed anyone, but the lack thereof has.

KFG
Re:Good Grief... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 12:34 · Score: 0

I use it nearly every other day. Reading a translation doesn't cut it. I use Greek nearly every other day too; same reason. I'll admit, the Coptic and the Akkadian I don't use much ...
Re:Good Grief... by antic · 2003-12-30 13:04 · Score: 1

I'm from Australia which is entirely separated from any other country, yet that stands as absolutely no excuse here. Learning a language is compulsory for at least one year of high school. I learnt some Italian in primary school, then studied Mandarin for 3 years. My sister has studied Indonesian within her time at university.

I've just returned from 10 months abroad (Peru and Chile, maybe 10 countries in Europe, China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, etc -- leaving for India in a week). The vast majority of Americans that we encountered were amazed that a variety of languages could be learnt by high school students (Greek, French, German, Italian, Farsi, Mandarin, Japanese at my high school 10 years ago).

That said, almost all younger Americans we met did make the effort to pick up small amounts of foreign languages when abroad -- especially Spanish which I understand is an option at US high schools?

--
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
Re:Good Grief... by NanoGator · 2003-12-30 13:20 · Score: 1

" Learning a language is compulsory for at least one year of high school."

Same is true in the USA. I had to take a semester of beginning langauges (an intro to french, spanish, and german), a year of Latin, plus 3 years of an elective langauge.

"The vast majority of Americans that we encountered were amazed that a variety of languages could be learnt by high school students (Greek, French, German, Italian, Farsi, Mandarin, Japanese at my high school 10 years ago)."

When I was in Australia, Japan was a popular country to visit. Not sure of the distances, but it felt like flying to Japan wasn't too big of deal. Just a few hours (5ish? I'd love a correction on tihs if I'm wrong) and you're there. Man I'd love to go there, but it's like half a globe away from me here. Then again, the USA is very large and packed with diverse settings to go visit. Trips to Greece etc seem exotic. I'm not all that surprised that we don't have that wide of variety of langauges to study. Again, I think geography plays a huge role in this, something that's difficult for outsiders to see right away.

"That said, almost all younger Americans we met did make the effort to pick up small amounts of foreign languages when abroad -- especially Spanish which I understand is an option at US high schools?"

Oh yes, one of the more popular ones. Languages are not as diverse here. As I mentioned before, it's not easy to get out there. (Though I am some surprised that japanese isn't an option...) I cannot offer you a reason, but I can tell you it's easy to get into these classes in community colleges.

--
"Derp de derp."
Re:Good Grief... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 13:23 · Score: 0

hah, that's funny. I'm in my last year of Electrical/Computer Engineering. I took a political science class on china. There was a lot of returning students, and almost all of them were Engineers who said they need to know more about China for their career. I'm also taking Mandarin this semester, and it's mostly full of Asians with parents who speak chinese. Subtracting that group, mostly scientist and Engineer types.
Re:Good Grief... by Vengeance_au · 2003-12-30 15:05 · Score: 1

Sydney, Australia is 4360 nautical miles from Tokyo, Japan. Los Angeles is 4782 nautical miles from Tokyo. Thats just over 10 hours of flying for Aussies, and slightly less than 11 hours for Americans. Rather more than 5 hours, and similar travel times for Americans and Aussies :).
Re:Good Grief... by MidnightBrewer · 2003-12-30 15:10 · Score: 1

Spoken like somebody who has never taken a foreign language class. Which is more likely to pronounce any given word or phrase correctly every single time without forgetting how it's done, a computer or a human?

--
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
Re:Good Grief... by beeplet · 2003-12-30 15:19 · Score: 1

Learning a language is compulsory for at least one year of high school. This is laughable. In Quebec, second-language classes are required from Kindergarten through grade 12. Everyone graduates high school fluently bilingual.
Re:Good Grief... by NanoGator · 2003-12-30 15:31 · Score: 1

Oops, sorry.

Hmm. Is there a popular destination then that's 5 hours'ish? I was in Adelaide so I doubt it was like New Zealand. (T'weren't Perth either, it was from another country.)

Sorry, it was back in 98 when I was there.

--
"Derp de derp."
Re:Good Grief... by zeno_2 · 2003-12-30 15:56 · Score: 1

I live in the U.S. and we had the choice of french, german, and spanish as a language in the first year of high school. They have these classes all the way up to the 4th year of high school. I took 3 years of spanish, but ive been out of school for.. 6 years now and I have yet to really use it. I can probably get by better then others if I were to go to lets say spain, but unless you speak / hear it everyday, all the spanish I was taught goes away fast..
Re:Good Grief... by The+Cydonian · 2003-12-30 17:29 · Score: 1

People cowtow to the language of commerce
Well, yes but to a lesser extent than you'd suggest. The best example I can give for this is in Pushkar, Rajasthan in India; Pushkar, I'm told, gets a lot of hitch-hikers from Israel, so the shops have started putting up advertising boards in Hebrew. But that is the extent of their Hebrew knowledge, apparently; presumably, you'll still have to speak with the shop-keeper in Hindi or English.
You see, traditionally, the languages of commerce have been pidgins, linguistic mixtures with no body of literature, and mostly invented for the express purpose of bargaining, among other things.
That is how, for instance, I, a non-Chinese (Cantonese or Mandarin) speaker bargain in Hong Kong's night markets; you point to an item being sold, then look up at the guy and turn your hand in askance. Guy looks at you and then at the article, and types a number on his calculator. You look at the number, frown, point towards your pockets, say you don't have that money, upon which the guy now frowns, types another number.. and so it goes on. Indeed, bargaining is an art that requires no language, only numbers and some heavy body language.
Transfer of knowledge (whether scientific or business-related), on the other hand, requires a fully-grown grammar and vocabulary.
(What do I mean by 'business-related' knowledge? To take a 15th-century example, we're talking stuff like, "The Raja of Cochin sends The Sultan of Aden his warmest greetings and some worrying news. The Portuguese have taken over the ancient port-city of Porbandar and our threatening our traditional trade routes. Let us form a combined army and take them out. In return, we'll offer you a year's worth of spices" You can't do that with body-language.)

--
More than mere navel gazing.
Re:Good Grief... by dvdeug · 2003-12-30 17:32 · Score: 1

most of whom don't even bother to take the trouble to learn how to say "please" and "thank you" in the language of the nation they're in at the moment.

And other nations would never do that. Oh no, all the English in India when it was a colony all spoke Hindi and whatever languages were appropriate for the area they lived in. And all the French in Vietnam spoke fluent Vietnamese.

Europeans often are insular and parochial. Look how much of fight that goes on for the Basque to just use their own language. Look at the French who pass innumberal laws to stop normal language evolution. I was once flamed by a Luxemberger because Americans don't know where Luxemberg, a country smaller then every American state, probably smaller then every Chinese state, smaller then thousands of cities. But it is vitally important that every one know exactly where it is.

This is pure cultural arrogance.

Or it's simple cost-effect balance. It's clear he doesn't need to learn Spanish, so he doesn't. This is a rule that has been used in Europe for centuries, that only the languages of the noble important countries need to be learned, not that of the peasants or the heathens. Russian rulers sometimes didn't know Russian
Re:Good Grief... by The+Cydonian · 2003-12-30 18:00 · Score: 1

This keeps coming up all the time, and I keep pointing this out:- to say America speaks one single language is a myth. There are more than 200 languages spoken within US borders, most of which are spoken nowhere else. Different matter that you don't need to speak Cherokee, for instance, to survive, but all the same, it is important to recognise that there languages other than English that are spoken in the US.
The barbs on (English-speaking) Americans and their insularity mostly stems from this apparent inability to recognise culturo-linguistic groups beyond that of their own. Of course, being loud, abrasive and rash with the natives wherever they go only adds to the problem (which is not to say I think you or all Americans, are so; just telling you about the general impression out here)
But of course, the Americans are not alone in being linguistically insular. I was speaking with two friends of mine, a New Zealander and a German, both Singapore-based, on travel, when the topic turned to Americans and their lack of knowledge of the world around them. One of them said most Americans seem to think Singapore is in China, to which, the other he had read an MIT-published paper that cited another paper published in "Singapore, China". And both started laughing; oh how silly the Americans can be, they don't know that Singapore is a city-state by itself and not a part of the People's Republic of China.
I smiled with them, and said, "Oh trust me, that's not all; most Americans think we speak a language called Indian in India!". And I started laughing myself.
Both of them stared at me for a full five minutes, before one of them quietly asked, "Ah.. so what do you speak then?"
:-)
Somehow, I felt bad for them; there they were, laughing at someone else's lack of knowledge, while their own limits got exposed, albeit unintentionally.

--
More than mere navel gazing.
Re:Good Grief... by The+Cydonian · 2003-12-30 18:12 · Score: 1

And you haven't used a phrasebook as yet? :-)
Personally, I've never really figured out how to use a phrasebook (and trust me, I've tried); I mean, for sure, you can get your questions right, but how do you understand the answers? Phrase-idioms describing directions are very very community-specific and are long; it'll take a LOT of work to write all those directions down in the host language, whip your dictionary out, translate all of them, and then get to your destination.
Instead, I find using a bit of gestures, and some key English (or the native language) phrases very useful; to find the directions to a railway station in Germany, you could, for instance, say, "Hapt Bahnof" to an elderly German lady, point towards yourself, and then make an action gesturing that you want to walk to the place. The lady will answer in German for sure, but since you are making pointing out that you don't know the language, more likely than not, she'll simplify her instructions for you to understand. Again, you pick the right keywords ("Marketplatz", "Alexanderplatz" etc.), make sure you get the direction correct (say 'right' and point to the right etc), and presto, you are on your way.
That is to say, knowing the right sentence or two definitely helps you in picking up the chicks (as opposed to elderly ladies) in European (or even more likely, Asian) bars for instance, but beyond that, I really haven't found a use for all those French-In-A-Minute or Mandarin-In-A-Minute books.

--
More than mere navel gazing.
Re:Good Grief... by Otter · 2003-12-31 01:59 · Score: 1

What you're saying is precisely my point -- the original poster was presenting elocution as an insurmountable barrier to overcome without years of training, as though you'd be using this translator to get a position in the local National Assembly.
I use a phrasebook exactly the way you're suggesting and the way a PDA could be used. You learn a few words (right, left, street, basic numbers), use your resource to make your request in the dumbest way possible, ignore most of the answer, go the way they point and ask the same question at the next block.

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What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Re:Good Grief... by danila · 2004-01-01 00:12 · Score: 1

A very good point, but I will play devil's advocate. You see, English is simply the best language from the international traveller's point of view. I am Russian, I speak fluent English and I consider that to be enough in most countries. I studies French for two years, but to know avail, it just didn't excite me too much and I abandoned it. Can understand many words and say a few sentences, but wouldn't really try that in Paris. I spent two months learning Finnish, but didn't have much luck either. Polkupyora, perkele, huvyaa ruokasala and a few dozens other words. On my Japanese trip I learned a few words, but they too were quickly forgotten on return flight.

The end result is that it's easier to rely on English. I know that in almost any country I can find someone speaking some English and communicate with them. Most people should speak English anyway, at least most of those worth speaking to. So I can understand perfectly well why some Australians, Britons and Americans don't want to learn another language. It might look like cultural arrogance, but it isn't necessarily it. May be they are just being rational.

--
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Re:Good Grief... by antic · 2004-01-06 11:59 · Score: 1

Probably Bali in Indonesia. I've been there twice and it's a very affordable destination with package deals always on offer.

I'm from Adelaide also, and Bali would be 5 hours. I'm flying to Singapore/Bangkok/Mumbai today and tomorrow and Singapore is a bit further than Bali at maybe 6 or 7 hours.

Anyway, I really don't think that geography is any excuse. There are a tonne of attractions within Australia for local travellers, and thousands of kilometres separating major cities (especially Adelaide) from the nearest foreign country but most people have learnt the basics in at least one language besides English.

--
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'

And here by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:24 · Score: 3, Funny

I thought that you only had to speak English slowly and loudly enough for anyone to understand. Silly me!

Re:And here by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:35 · Score: 0

As Dave Berry once wrote: '"TAKE ME TO THE AIRPORT", I said, speaking in capital letters so he would understand me.' (or something like that.)
Re:And here by Camel+Pilot · 2003-12-30 10:39 · Score: 1

No no no it is the accent that really matters and gets the point across.
Re:And here by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:43 · Score: 0

No, you also have to use a poorly-done imitation of the other person's accent.
Re:And here by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 17:56 · Score: 0

Actually this approach does work well when foreigners know a little English. I live with three Asian students, and i've taken to speaking English more elocuted - a bit like a stage actor. It helps them a lot to be able to hear each word seperately and not all drawled together like we would normally speak. I always hoped for the same treatment when i was overseas attempting to speak/learn Dutch and German.

Hmmm by dreamchaser · 2003-12-30 10:24 · Score: 2, Insightful

According to the article, it only works for medical terms so far, and is only 80% accurate. I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't think I'd want to trust any of my medical treatment to such a translation!

Doctor: "Well, we thought he said pennicillin, not omoxycillin! I'm afraid the infection has run amok!"

Re:Hmmm by NeoThermic · 2003-12-30 10:29 · Score: 1

Or the inverse: We are 80% sure that his PDA thing said that he broke his left hand, however, because of the 20% inaccuracy, we hedged our bets and plasterd his right hand...

NeoThermic

--
Use my link above, or to view my server, NeoThermic.com
Re:Hmmm by xie · 2003-12-30 10:32 · Score: 1

I like the thought that since its only 80% accurate they could be spending valuable time making sure the translation is right instead of maybe just diagnosising/treating me.
Re:Hmmm by plinius · 2003-12-30 10:40 · Score: 1

If you had ever dealt with the clueless doctors in some European countries, you would know that every detail you can give them will help. Some of those people, even if the speak English by some chance, seem like they have degrees from community colleges. Medicine is barely more than a hobby for them.
Re:Hmmm by izzo+nizzo · 2003-12-30 10:45 · Score: 1

for diagnosis this could actually be pretty useful, as it would only have to understand certain phrases such as "where does it hurt" it is disappointing that voice recognition isn't great yet, but be optimistic people. It will be hot when it's ready.
Re:Hmmm by Spam.B.gone · 2003-12-30 10:46 · Score: 2, Funny

oh no.. he said 'I want a full bottle in front of me'...

Good Idea... by avgjoe62 · 2003-12-30 10:24 · Score: 5, Funny

> I could see this as a boon to the tourist who travels to places where English speakers are uncommon.

Yeah, I could really use one of these when I go from Fort Lauderdale to Miami...

--

How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?

Re:Good Idea... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:52 · Score: 0

My son is getting ready to choose his High School Foreign Language (after 3 years of intro to Spanish in 6th-8th grades).
He wants to take German. We are in Ohio.
I keep stressing to him how critical Spanish is (we couldn't even order a Gin and Tonic in Miami - that was a tragedy!) Hispanics are the largest minority in the US and certainly the most common non-English language (not counting Kentuckiana language and Java).
What foreign language would you recommend that a High Schooler take?
Re:Good Idea... by avgjoe62 · 2003-12-30 11:04 · Score: 1

While Spanish is always good to know, in college German or Russian was a requirement for an engineering degree.
Besides, my mom was from Germany, so I had someone to practice with built-in.
If I had a choice, though, and I had the options of your son, I would take German but keep up with my Spanish. Maybe watch Spanish language satellite television channels (aside from the practice, the chicas are hot!)

--
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?

Yeah, thanks, but I'll wait for a bit... by dejinshathe · 2003-12-30 10:25 · Score: 3, Funny

"It also works only when the speakers are talking about medical information, and it's only about 80 percent accurate in the lab."

Forgive my immediate misgivings, and you can call me chicken if you want, but I'm really not that keen on walking into a hospital and asking to have a medical procedure done with a 1 in 5 chance that instead of removing my appendix, they might remove my "appendage"...

--

"It is the prerogative of fools (or noobs) to utter truths that no one else will speak."

Re:Yeah, thanks, but I'll wait for a bit... by shuz · 2003-12-30 10:51 · Score: 2, Insightful

If your willing to not have your speech translated in realtime. Say your willing to wait 5 minutes or so a 95% or better return can be expected. The main reason why these translators aren't accurate a lot of the time is because the algorithm used can only make a limited ammount of passes on each word so that each word is translated in near realtime.

--
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle

Excellent! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:26 · Score: 1, Funny

Now i can travel to other parts of the USA and be able to understand the locals!

A little bablefish by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:26 · Score: 0

English -> French -> German -> English:

Not necessarily also well as babelfish, but a PDA, which makes the translation, is probably better than falling back, in order to give only gestures. She could see this as the favour the tourist, who travels to the places, where the persons of the English speech are a little frequent.

I've always wanted to sound like... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:27 · Score: 2, Funny

...Stephen Hawking in Arabic.

Re:I've always wanted to sound like... by Shut+the+fuck+up! · 2003-12-30 10:30 · Score: 1

...Stephen Hawking in Arabic.

Just add a little to the name and you got it: Stephen Hawking a luggie.

The military has had these for years by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:27 · Score: 0

The prototypes only said "All your base are belong to us" in Iraqi.

audio phrase books by peter303 · 2003-12-30 10:27 · Score: 1

For when text-books are too cumbersome in the field. I thought these were being used to some degree by the military already.
Like the books they are not intrinsically intelligent.

Re:audio phrase books by rduke15 · 2003-12-30 13:27 · Score: 1

Like the books they are not intrinsically intelligent.

Are you allowed to say such things about the military in the US?

a complete translator could be possible by shuz · 2003-12-30 10:27 · Score: 4, Interesting

Technology is at a point where all the software has been written to create a translator where a person speaks into a microphone which then is translated into text which is then translated into a different language which is then played back verbally in the same persons voice in a different language. The problem is that this cannot be done in realtime. 4 years ago I worked on a project for At&t to create an application that would train a users voice, break down thier voice patterns and be able to rearange those patterns to create other sounds which sound like they are coming from that real person. The problem is that with current processors the time to train and process is about 10 hours. So we can do voice recognition in realtime, we can translate text words in realtime, and in 10 hours we can reproduce a persons voice nearly flawlessly. Think of the possiblities!

--
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle

Re:a complete translator could be possible by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:53 · Score: 1, Interesting

So we can do voice recognition in realtime, we can translate text words in realtime, and in 10 hours we can reproduce a persons voice nearly flawlessly. Think of the possiblities!

Yeah, I bet John Ashcroft is creaming his jeans... just think, if your wiretaps don't pick up anything incriminating, you can still use them to *make* someone say something incriminating.
Re:a complete translator could be possible by burns210 · 2003-12-30 11:36 · Score: 1

so should we look for this in the 3.0 linux kernel? I mean seriously, want to out innovate Microsoft?(i do!) Then lets start work on it. GNU/Speech Recognition, GNU/Translator, GNU/Synthesizer or something like that.

in the 4 years since your work, we have gone through nearly 2 1/2 "Moore Generations" so processors are far beefier than they have ever been. another generation, they will be in the 5+ Ghz range, which should be able to cut that 10 hours of processing down a lot.

Even better, why process it at all? just have RMS GPL his own voice and have in built into the kernel, so it could have common words/sounds already predone, so only a smoother would be needed to make it sound natural... Right?
Re:a complete translator could be possible by shuz · 2003-12-30 15:32 · Score: 1

I guess my point and hope would be that someone speaks into a device in one language and in thier own voice comes out the of the device in another language. What I am trying to convey is that this is possible. Its just that right now it would take about 10 hours for your average PDA to accoumplish this. I suppose it would still take a regular computer 5 hours or so. Also I wrote the interface of the program with a Dr. (which I am not) in com sci writing the engine. Also I am pretty sure all that work is well and copy righted. Heck maybe even the my idea is already patented by someone. if not Patent Pending... as soon as I find 100k to throw at the US patent office.

--
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
Re:a complete translator could be possible by burns210 · 2003-12-30 19:03 · Score: 1

it would be ubercool to have your own voice, but just the idea of that makes me nervous(talk about identity theft)... to have it speak any voice at all would be amazing.
Re:a complete translator could be possible by Leroy_Brown242 · 2003-12-31 04:31 · Score: 1

I see a lot of things standing in the way of seamless translation.

Right now, computers talking sounds choppy and pieced together. Because it is just recognizing words and playing pre-recorded sound clips. To sound more natural, a program would not be looking for words to say, but would understand the language, and would be able to speak the language.

To have it sound like you, you would have to give it extensive training. This would have to be very thorough. On the flip side, if it was to "listen" to people speak a foreign language, then translate, it would have to be able to accept a wide range of voice tones, and rhythms, and slang. I don't know anyone who speaks perfect english with no slang.

Then of course, as has been discussed, computing power is going to be needed. I don't think a 300MHz RISC of some sort is going to have the power to do something like that in a reasonable amount of time. I can only assume that it would take both space and speed when it comes to storage. something else i don't think a PDA could supply.

--
Pretty Pictures!

Could work, in a limited sense.. by iantri · 2003-12-30 10:28 · Score: 2, Informative

There is a program that already exists for the Palm (unfortunately I do not remember the name) that allows you rudimentary communication with one who speaks a foreign language by translating common phrases, selected by tapping on the screen.

I realize that this software is supposed to be somewhat more powerful, but what I am saying is that even limited translation programs are useful for tourists.

text by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:29 · Score: 2, Informative

As speech recognition technology gets better, and as handheld computers get more powerful, audio translators are becoming a more practical proposition.

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, Cepstral, LLC, Multimodal Technologies Inc. and Mobile Technologies Inc. have put together a two-way speech-to-speech system that translates medical information from Arabic to English and English to Arabic and runs on an iPaq handheld computer.

The prototype falls short of Star Trek's fictional universal translator in several ways. The system is not transparent -- it must be switched between Arabic-to-English and English-to-Arabic modes. It also works only when the speakers are talking about medical information, and it's only about 80 percent accurate in the lab.

The device shows that it's becoming possible, however, to provide automatic translation using a portable device. "It's good enough to make yourself understood," said Alex Waibel, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University and a founder of Mobile Technologies Inc.

The effort is one of a series of projects aimed at providing the armed forces with automatic translation for medical and force protection situations and making automatic translation in a wider set of subject areas available for tourists during the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, said Waibel.

The Speechalator prototype uses a built-in microphone and a language-selection button. "You push on the button on the iPaq and speak a sentence and then the translation comes out... in the other language," said Waibel. "You can switch it into the opposite mode when the other person answers and it translates back into your own language."

The software consists of three components: a speech recognizer, a translator, and a speech synthesis engine. "Each one of these components have slight twists to them... in order to work properly for speech translation," said Waibel.

The researchers modified the speech recognition engine to optimize it for handling spontaneous speech.

The translation system has the biggest twist. It extracts the key meaning from the input sentence and translates it to an interlingual, or intermediate representation, and the process depends on the speech being contained in a certain domain, or context, like medical information. "It's just certain nuggets in the phrase that... you need to extract," said Waibel.

The process is akin to constructing a medical-context template that fits the key information, then filling in the template, said Waibel. This process makes it possible for the system to handle spontaneous speech. "We go fishing for the nuggets," he said. But it is also a limitation -- the system must know what domain a speaker is talking about.

The researchers are working on a system that can handle multiple contexts and automatically switch between them, said Waibel. "It can, for example, recognize 'now you're in the hotel reservation domain', or 'now you're in the conference registration mode', or 'now you're talking about medical problem'," he said.

To come up with templates that handle different domains, the researchers collect a lot of data from people talking in those domains, said Waibel. "The more data we collect the better coverage of all the possible ways you could be saying [these things] becomes," he said.

The difficult part was fitting the software required to do two-way translation in the 64 megabytes of memory contained in the handheld computer, said Waibel. "You need two recognizers, two synthesizers and two translators to make [it] happen in both directions," he said.

The prototype also has a camera attachment that translates text like that on street signs, said Waibel. Snap a picture of a sign with the camera and it automatically extracts the text region, puts the text through a character recognition program, then translates it, he said. "What you then see on the screen is the picture of the scene with a sign and then underneath an English subtitle," he said.

I can see it now... by stienman · 2003-12-30 10:29 · Score: 4, Funny

"Are you speaking the english?"

"I speak to the English, it's the Americans I won't talk to..."

-Adam

That's great, but ... by fastdecade · 2003-12-30 10:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

First can we have a PDA that does decent text-to-speech or speech-to-text, preferably both.

A hardware babelfish will revolutionise human communication later this century, but right now you need both of the above before you can begin to contemplate speech-to-speech. I can't imagine any serious algorithm at this time would attempt direct translation, without an intermediate text translation phase.

Bit OT: Considering the interest in E-Books, I don't know why music players and PDAs force users to download wave forms when we could just download text and convert using a cheap text-to-speech synth.

Re:That's great, but ... by cavebear42 · 2003-12-30 10:45 · Score: 2, Insightful

Forget PDA, I would like any software that can do a decent Speech-to-text. Every year of so I try all the latest stuff. Every year I keep typing. It is more likly that the rest of the world will learn english than we will have an effective translator in real time.
Re:That's great, but ... by netsavior · 2003-12-30 10:50 · Score: 1

Are you serious? an e-book read by stephen hawking? I download the mp3s because people reading books do accents and sometimes do fun voices, *sigh* it reminds me of kindergarten all over again. I could not listen to a synth for 80,000 words.
Re:That's great, but ... by burns210 · 2003-12-30 11:28 · Score: 1

ever use a mac? Honestly, i have been looking to get one, and their builtin speech recognition is fairly decent... much better(without any training, this was just a show model i walked up to and played with) than i would have expected, even after used popular speech programs and training them.

It is command based.... "Minimize all windows" "Close this application" and whatnot, but it is quite accurate(not perfect).

Maybe Jobs will have OS XI allow for plain-english input, rather than command based only :)

Yelling Helps by aredubya74 · 2003-12-30 10:31 · Score: 3, Funny

Outstanding. This thing will finally make the common Ugly American practice of yelling actually useful:

*hold PDA to face* Ahem! "WHERE IS THE BATHROOM?!" *hold PDA to foreigner's ear*

--

RW

Re:Yelling Helps by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:52 · Score: 0

Unfortunately, you might be shown a room that actually has a bath in it but no sign of a toilet ;)

Anyway I always thought that you Americans travelled with pistols and used those to communicate with non-english speakers.
Re:Yelling Helps by aredubya74 · 2003-12-30 11:13 · Score: 1

Unfortunately, you might be shown a room that actually has a bath in it but no sign of a toilet ;)

Obviously, you have never been to the dorm or apartment of an American college student. Toilet? Sink? Tub? Hey, whatever you can hit.

Anyway I always thought that you Americans travelled with pistols and used those to communicate with non-english speakers.

That's only NRA members and star athletes, and even then, they yell first, shoot later.

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RW

Obligatory AYB Reference by Eberlin · 2003-12-30 10:32 · Score: 1

...but since that's way too obvious, I'll leave it to the casual slashdotter to fill in the joke.

Let's face it, language butchery is funny. To do so automatically is so much more amusing! I mean I installed festival on my machine just so I could hear the synth voice say stuff like "beeeeyotch" and "retaaard" -- imagine how well you could offend in different dialects!

I suppose it does have legitimate uses...but what fun is that? Then again with the quality of translation software nowadays, it should be amusing nonetheless. If nothing else, maybe we can use it to come up with retranslated English to use as virus subjects. Maybe we could come up with gems better than "I send this to ask opinion for you. Don't show anyone!"

I wonder... by NeoThermic · 2003-12-30 10:33 · Score: 0, Redundant

If it can translate 'All Your Bases Are Belong To Us' correclty?

--
Use my link above, or to view my server, NeoThermic.com

Re:FP by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:33 · Score: 0

You suck so much at getting FP that you can't even get First FAILED IT!!!

PDA speech translator... with ear bud? by 192939495969798999 · 2003-12-30 10:36 · Score: 1

If it talks in and out, and uses an ear bud, it would be like being able to speak the language, albeit with a terrible accent, and occasionally offending the prime minister! That would be cool.

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stuff |

What did you say? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:37 · Score: 0

I do not know the location of the hovercraft of which you speak, but the eels sound potentially appetizing.

Takes the fun out by plinius · 2003-12-30 10:37 · Score: 1

The fun thing about travel is trying to undertstand people and them trying to understand you. Most people want to learn a little English and many Americans want to learn anything else (other than Spanish of course, which Mexicans have made them think is a peasant language). Anyway, with a machine I think it would be awkward, and it may make the local person feel a little inadequate (I got a PDA, you don't).

Re:Takes the fun out by rduke15 · 2003-12-30 13:35 · Score: 1

and it may make the local person feel a little inadequate (I got a PDA, you don't).

As a potential "local", I can reassure you: I certainly wouldn't "feel inadequate", while ROFL.
Re:Takes the fun out by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 13:40 · Score: 0

I always wondered why I didn't feel like learning spanish. You might be right about the 'peasant language' idea. I'll have to think about this some more.
A machine might be awkward, but if the UI was good enough that the user didn't have to stop paying attention to the person he was trying to communicate with, then it'd be better than a phrasebook or dictionary.

"My hovercraft is full of eels" by NZheretic · 2003-12-30 10:39 · Score: 5, Funny

With apologies to the python crew...

Text on screen: In 2004, the World Trade Center lay in ruins, and foreign nationalists frequented the streets - many of them Arabs (not the streets - the foreign nationals). Anyway, many of these Arabs went into tobacconist's shops to buy cigarettes....

A Arab tourist approaches the shopclerk. The tourist is talking haltingly into a PDA.

Arab: I will not buy this record, it is scratched.
Clerk: Sorry?
Arab: I will not buy this record, it is scratched.
Clerk: Uh, no, no, no. This is a tobacconist's.
Arab: Ah! I will not buy this *tobacconist's*, it is scratched.
Clerk: No, no, no, no. Tobacco...um...cigarettes (holds up a pack).
Arab: Ya! See-gar-ets! Ya! Uh...My hovercraft is full of eels.
Clerk: Sorry?
Arab: My hovercraft (pantomimes puffing a cigarette)...is full of eels (pretends to strike a match).
Clerk: Ahh, matches!
Arab: Ya! Ya! Ya! Ya! Do you waaaaant...do you waaaaaant...to come back to my place, bouncy bouncy?
Clerk: Here, I don't think you're using that thing right.
Arab: You great poof.
Clerk: That'll be six and six, please.
Arab: If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me? I...I am no longer infected.
Clerk: Uh, may I, uh...(takes PDA, talks to it)...Costs six and six...ah, here we are. (speaks weird Arabic-sounding words)
Arab punches the clerk.

Meanwhile, a cop on a quiet street cups his ear as if hearing a cry of distress. He sprints for many blocks and finally enters the tobacconist's.

Cop: What's up
Arab: Ah. You have beautiful thighs.
Cop: (looks down at himself) WHAT?!?
Clerk: He hit me!
Arab: Drop your panties, Sir William; I cannot wait 'til lunchtime. (points at clerk)
Cop: RIGHT!!! (drags Arab away by the arm)
Arab: (indignantly) My nipples explode with delight!

Just wait ten years by mschuyler · 2003-12-30 10:42 · Score: 5, Interesting

I believe PDAs are going to be tremendously transformed over the next few years.

1. Convergence is going to happen with a vengance. The Treo 600 is just the start. More and more apps will make it to the PDA. Speech recognition is one, and that sets up for another dybamic...

PDAs don't really need screens and keyboards if you can talk to them and they can talk to you. If they don't need those components, they can get a whole lot smaller. The next generation PDAs will be like a hearing aid, and the ones after that will be built into your glasses or an implant. That means less power, so less battery. Besides, it will be able to run on your body heat if not tap into your own body's electrical system, so it won't need a battery. Every improvemnt along these lines dwindles the size even more. A heads-up display, made transparent or opaque, ought to handle those times when you need to really observe rather than consult.

A combination of AI and connectivity will mean your PDA is your first line of defense in many of life's situations. Get pulled over by a cop and it will tell you what to do, what NOT to do, and contact your lawyer. Need a cop and it will call them and know just how long it's going to take to get there.

Medicine: It will have a complete medical history of you, remind you to take your meds, and monitor your blood pressure and other vita signs. If you have a heart attack it will call 911 with your location and be the first thing the medics consult when they get to you.

Personality: You'll be able to choose its level of humor and sarcasm. Although clearly a machine, people will develop meaningful relationships with them, at least they'll think so.

Connectivity: Everything you can think of, including your own house, which you'll call up to turn the heat up since you're coming home early. All teh Wi-Fi/cell connectivity you want will be built in.

Finances: It will know everything you do and provide access to your dough. If you get overdrawn it will be intentional because it will have real time access. It will have all the ATM/debit/credit stuff all on-hand. It will also be able to shop for you and tell you where the best deal is.

It will know all your friends and business associates and help remind you, "This is Joe. He's a Cougar. He knows you're a Husky, but don't rub it in. His kid just joined the Navy. He thinks LOTR sucks, and Rush is Right, so be careful. He drinks Guiness. His budget is 250K and he's looking to upgrade the Ciscos."

You'd never think of leaving home without this. Indeed, since it very well may be built-in, you won't have to worry about it. Just keep up the subscription.
'

--
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.

Re:Just wait ten years by RadioheadKid · 2003-12-30 11:00 · Score: 1

Are you the same person that said to wait ten yearsf for all this stuff, ten years ago?

--
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
Re:Just wait ten years by monkeyfinger · 2003-12-30 11:00 · Score: 1

Convergence is going to happen with a vengance.
The ultimate in convergance will be when the PDA becomes part of the users body. Connecting with their nervous system and even their brain.
Re:Just wait ten years by burns210 · 2003-12-30 11:23 · Score: 1

I like your first point, that a computer needs input, output, and a processor. input and output don't have to be keyboard and screen, or a combo touchscreen as found in pdas.... voice recognition and sythesis(not necesarily anything CLOSE to true AI, just a well tuned bot) are just as good potentially for input/output...

The second part you mentioned, about medical history brings up a more interesting point... I don't see there being the all-mighty Palm Pilot to hold my life's history and be my google proxy when i get pulled over, i see many PDAs acting in a PAN(personal area network) to assist you.

A medical bracelet, instead of saying what you are allergic to, could hold a all your important medical history in a digital file, encrypted ofcourse.

Or a cam/eye glasses combo that feeds video into a Palm device, that might give feedback on say, face recognition(remember the guy you met last year at that party? ya, but what was his name?... your PDA could see his face, and match it against it's database)

I see many small devices working together, rather than 1 large device trying to do everything. Atleast that is what i would like to see happen.
Re:Just wait ten years by gnu-generation-one · 2003-12-30 11:53 · Score: 1

"Medicine: It will have a complete medical history of you"

Let's see... are there any secure PDAs available yet? I have a USB hard-disk sitting next to me, and I still worry about it being stolen, to the point where all data on it is PGP-encrypted.

Are we gonna use the ambulanceman's public-key (private key on his USB key) to encrypt our medical data? Or just stoure our SSN as an index to the ubiquitous database-on-everybody that will be more visible then than it is now...
Re:Just wait ten years by mschuyler · 2003-12-30 11:57 · Score: 1

Nah. Ten years ago I told my colleagues I thought this web thing might turn out to be pretty cool. But I was still shoving stuff onto a gopher. I was also using Pine. Oh, wait! I'm STILL using Pine!

--
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Re:Just wait ten years by ralphclark · 2004-01-01 16:00 · Score: 1

Just keep up the subscription.

Forget subscription. If it's mass market acceptance you're after, it won't take off until you can buy it outright, with access to all necessary services included in the price (for some period close to the expected period of ownership the device , before upgrading).

This has been a pretty clear lesson of the past few years for all kinds of tech startups. Those who didn't learn it either died in the dotcom crash or soon will.

The Russians developed a portable translator... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:44 · Score: 0

...with a small supercomputer stored in an over-sized novelty hat. You could only wear it for 10 minutes at a time before suffering permanent neck damage.

don't we need actual voice recog first by netsavior · 2003-12-30 10:45 · Score: 2, Insightful

my experience with voice recognition (yes even your beloved Via-Voice) is that it blows and will for some time. We probably need better speech recognition before we get speech to speech.

Save your money by Swai · 2003-12-30 10:45 · Score: 0

Instead of having all sorts of gadgets with you when traveling, plus all sorts of voltage adapters/convertors, here are some words that I think work fair good around the world.

For food:

Hamburger.
Mc Donald's.

For water:

Evian.
Perrier.

For car:

Toyota.
Nissan.

For a phone call:

AT&T.

If you need to send a message forget the bottle use the word FedEx.

After all is not that bad living in a world which brands everything but the air we breath :).

Never forget the useful SOS and the word NO. Is also helpful to learn the local word for please, potty, taxi and thanks.

Now all this words are for emergency situations else get a copy of the local travel guide from Mc Nally or any other source and you are more than set to go.

My final word is that we should'nt be umbilical cord attached to technologies left and right. Regards.

MOD PARENT DOWN by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:47 · Score: 0

He's being demeaning to you moderators and questioning your judgement.

It might be faster and cheaper... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:49 · Score: 0

...for the United States to invade every country and impose the English language on each of them. We've been promised seamless voice recognition and translation for years and I don't see it happening anytime before Duke Nukem: Forever gets released.

Great! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:51 · Score: 0

Now if I can just get it to answer the question "So, what are you wearing?" then I can save myself from that $2.99/minute charge that keeps showing up on my phone bill!

History shows that no new technology really takes off until in becomes an effective distribution mechanism for porn...

Travelling by elf-fire · 2003-12-30 10:51 · Score: 2, Informative

Well. I have been to quite a few places where English was not exactly lingua franca. In most of these places semi-right pronounciation of foreign words would not have had a big impact. Hand gestures and my favourite dictionary (which contains pictures of just about anything one would ever need 'on the road') have always been sufficient to find a hotel, a train or bus ticket out and some food. For the latter: Just walking into a restaurant's kitchen and pointing at the visible ingredients (dead or alive ;) ) suffices, and can generate a lot of fun in the process :)

Better than a babelfish... by jrumney · 2003-12-30 10:52 · Score: 1

Not being content with translating humanoid speech, the Japanese have aimed their sights higher; dogs and cats. Cheaper than a PDA too, but they still need to work on the size and texture so it slithers nicely into the ear.

English speakers uncommon? by El · 2003-12-30 10:55 · Score: 1

I could see this as a boon to the tourist who travels to places where English speakers are uncommon. You mean like those horribly backward places that consider "aluminium" to be a 3-syllable word, and think "getting pissed" has something to do with being angry?

--

"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney

Re:English speakers uncommon? by monkeyfinger · 2003-12-30 11:07 · Score: 1

You mean like those horribly backward places that consider "aluminium" to be a 3-syllable word, and think "getting pissed" has something to do with being angry?
...and can't tell their arse from their fanny.
Re:English speakers uncommon? by Xeger · 2003-12-30 13:01 · Score: 1

They can't tell their arse from their fanny, nor their bonnet from their boot! We're speakign of the despicable backwaters of civilization where "bumming a fag" from someone will get you a new homosexual friend. Places where they don't hold no truck with lorries, where there's no U in "local color" and they not only replace Ess with Zed, they replace it with Zee!

No, my friend, I'm afraid that in such a place, translation is the least of your problems. Your best bet is to placate the locals with any good beer you may have brought from home, and head for the airport as fast as your feet will carry you.

who needs a PDA... who needs a PDA... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 10:57 · Score: 0

Just don't forget your Protocol Droid

places where english speakers are uncommon by dna42 · 2003-12-30 10:59 · Score: 1

keep in mind that pdas are even more uncommon in those places, so i wouln't want to spend too much on such a device.
also keep in mind, that it actually is possible to learn a language, which does not happen to be the most widespread on this earth (or at least in those parts of this world you happen to travel to)...

As good as speech recognition even, but foreign? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 11:00 · Score: 0

Common, Lettuce divet a chalice and quite bean so whole of negativity!

Not as good as bablefish???? by theolein · 2003-12-30 11:01 · Score: 1

Babelfish is terrible at even translating Germanic and Latin languages and this thing is supposed to be worse than that?

I know that people want to solve everything with technology, but is it so much more difficult to learn another language or perhaps even a few phrases of the country where you are going to. Why does one even go to another country if one doesn't want to understand even the smallest part of that place?

Re:Not as good as bablefish???? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 11:06 · Score: 0

Obviously English is your second language, and the meaning of the word "a" in there went completely over your head. That and you have never read/heard/watched Hitchhikers Guide.

Bah! by MoeMoe · 2003-12-30 11:07 · Score: 2, Funny

Silly foreigner, don't you know everyone speaks English?

--
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...

Re:Bah! by burns210 · 2003-12-30 19:37 · Score: 1

they might all speak english, but try and have a west coaster talk to someone from the deep south who has a strong accent... you might honestly need a translator just for that given the accents change the way words and sentences sound and feel.

...where English speakers are uncommon by JGag21 · 2003-12-30 11:09 · Score: 2, Funny

Like Miami???

It even translates Muggese! by Cordath · 2003-12-30 11:12 · Score: 1

"Oh look honey! A local! I wonder what he wants. Use your iPaq to find out what he's saying!"

"Umm... He says 'Give me your iPaq or I will be forced to kill you and take your wife back to my yurt.'"

There are telephone translation services. by Moderation+abuser · 2003-12-30 11:28 · Score: 2, Interesting

So all you need is a mobile phone. You phone up the number for the language you need translated to, tell the translator what you want to say and hand the phone over to the person you want to talk to. Quite expensive per minute, but cheaper than a PDA and very very handy in an emergency.

Course, you could learn another language, it isn't remotely as difficult as school makes it out to be. English is one of the more difficult languages to learn. If you learn, one of Italian, French, Spanish, Portugese you should be able to pick the others up fairly quickly. English is based on a Germanic language with a lot of the French and Roman influences chucked in on top, it's a real mishmash.

--
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.

Re:There are telephone translation services. by Xeger · 2003-12-30 12:19 · Score: 1

Learning to dabble in a language is one thing; learning a language with the level of detail and intimacy required to talk about medical affairs, or to interrogate a prisoner of war or quickly find out critical information from a panicked civilian -- these are, I'm afraid, a bit harder than asking your way to a good restaurant.

Get your DoD sponsorship and security clearance in order, enroll in the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language School, and you'll be speaking the language of your sponsor's choice, fluently, in about a year. A further year of study will have you speaking that language like a permanent resident, with a full battery of knowledge regarding the culture, customs, political and military situation in in the country where that language is spoken.

Monterey is considered by many to be the finest language institution in the United States, possibly in the world. Their best-kept secret is this: in order to gain a spot in one of their language classes, you must score 85 or above on their language aptitude test. For "difficult" languages such as Serbian, Greek and Russian the requirement is 95; and for Chinese, Japanese and Arabic you'll need a whopping 100 on the aptitude test.

I submit that the lesson we can learn from Monterey is: the ability to learn languages is a trait that can not easily be tuaght. Not everyone is capable of twisting his brain in the right way. To pick up a language with the fluency and facility demanded for military (or intensive civilian) applications, you need a natural aptitude for learning languages. Even the best language school in the world admits to this.

I personally love languages. I'm semi-fluent in three languages, can get by in three others, and given the choice I would spend the rest of my life learning, speaking and enjoying the languages of other cultures. Although I'm an anti-authoritarian and hate taking orders, I've even considered landing a job with the Department of Defense, JUST to be able to go to Monterey. But I'm lucky enough to have a natural aptitude for languages.

For all of those grunts and mere mortals who aren't so lucky, who find themselves in a dusty street or a dark alley or a dimly-lit hotel lobby without any way to communicate with the locals, we need a better solution. Machine translation isn't perfect, but it's better than nothing. It's certainly one step above a dictionary!
Re:There are telephone translation services. by Moderation+abuser · 2003-12-30 14:10 · Score: 1

"Learning to dabble in a language is one thing; learning a language with the level of detail and intimacy required to talk about medical affairs, or to interrogate a prisoner of war or quickly find out critical information from a panicked civilian -- these are, I'm afraid, a bit harder than asking your way to a good restaurant."

I'm sorry, but where on earth did you get the impression that you could do the above with something which is almost certainly less reliable than babelfish on a PDA? You do have a particularly violently pink view of technology.

--
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Re:There are telephone translation services. by Moderation+abuser · 2003-12-30 14:21 · Score: 1

"the ability to learn languages is a trait that can not easily be tuaght"

I do agree with this 100% though not because people can't learn languages, but because the teachers and methodology simply aren't very good. 3 years at school taught me less about Italian than 6 months in the country talking to people on a daily basis.

The other thing is I think you missed the title of my post. You can phone a translator. You know, on a mobile phone.

--
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Re:There are telephone translation services. by belmolis · 2003-12-30 17:29 · Score: 3, Insightful

Aptitude testing is useful, but two other major factors in the success of the US government language schools (there are actually four: The Defense Language Institute in Monterey, the Foreign Service Institute, the CIA Language School, and the NSA Language School) are time and focus. In most other situations, such as high-school or college, people studying a language study it a small fraction of the time. It's one of four or more courses. Class time is 3-5 hours per week. On a typical university schedule, that's a maximum of 130 hours a year in class. In contrast, in the government language schools, language study is the whole show. Students spend 8 hours a day or more on the language (not all in class). That comes to much more time devoted to the language, and there are fewer distractions.
Re:There are telephone translation services. by Xeger · 2003-12-30 18:16 · Score: 1

To say that this PDA translation software "isn't as good as Babelfish" is to miss the point.

First of all, Babelfish is pretty darned good. It's true that Babelfish won't render the Rubaiyat into English; won't translate Shakespeare into Arabic. But if you use it to translate a general web page that uses newspaper vocabulary and avoids domain-specific jargon, Babelfish will help get the point across. If you count grammatical inaccuracies, Babelfish is less than 80% efficient. That's all we're looking for in this context: a tool I can use to get the point across if I'm conversing with an Arabic speaker and know only a little Arabic, or none at all.

Second, Babelfish does a bad job because it lacks context. Babelfish is designed with a huge vocabulary -- ideally it would know every word in every language! -- and must translate written language that deals with virtually any subject. by restricting recognition to a few specific domains, the recognizers and translators can do their job much better while consuming fewer resources. And once again: the goal is simply to get the point across, not to translate literature. Half as good as Babelfish would be sufficient.

Let's be pessimistic and assume that these devices bestow upon the user a vocabulary equivalent to a six-month student's command of the foreign language. That means the user can make use of the present tense, ask questions; determine gender and number of people and objects; translate written language phonetically; determine directions, distances, times and maybe a few colors; and make simple demands. It's certainly no replacement for even a novice human Arabic speaker, but it's better than nothing!
Re:There are telephone translation services. by Xeger · 2003-12-30 18:20 · Score: 1

Oh, I agree that phoning into a human translator is still going to provide the most accurate translation available. If you use a dedicated full-duplex telephone, the translator can even translate speech in real time, ending up with better accuracy and lower latency than the machine translator. But human translators aren't always available or cost-effective. The idea is to give people a rudimentary translating tool.

When I'm in western Europe, I normally carry a small electronic pocket translator around with me. It lets me learn new words as I travel, and helps me formulate specific sentences if I have a few minutes to prepare before interacting with someone. I imagine that a PDA-style machine recognizer/translator/synthesizer would fill this job rather more adequately. At the very least, I could use it to quickly translate phrases in anticipation of speaking.
Re:There are telephone translation services. by ThesQuid · 2003-12-31 01:21 · Score: 1

I met a guy who went to Monterey once. One of the aptitude tests went something like this:

You are put in a classroom with instructor(s) who "only" speak an entirely synthetic language (designed just for this purpose). You have 1 hour to communicate and obtain the following info: location of nearby towns, names of them, where am I, where's a nearby hospital, how are the roads, how long will it take to go somewhere and how far is it.

Pretty challenging, but if you have the knack for languages, you can do it.
Re:There are telephone translation services. by Xeger · 2003-12-31 06:05 · Score: 1

That sounds like a fun (if rather challenging) test. Thanks for the inside scoop!

Does it cover Equus? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 11:30 · Score: 0

I want to talk to my mare!

Ahh the horror by nizo · 2003-12-30 11:37 · Score: 1

Not quite as good as a babelfish

They should start a new reality show where Americans try to survive in various countries with only this device to translate for them. "How is your wife this evening" turns into "Where may I find a lady of the evening".

--
I Am My Own Worst Enemy

iPaq -> ARM -> 128 kB cache by js7a · 2003-12-30 11:49 · Score: 1

These things aren't going to get any better until handhelds get the cache sizes necessary to run a HMM search in reasonable time.

Re:dear sir by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 12:16 · Score: 0

Can you give som tips/hints? I don't want to FAIL IT again :/

mod parent up by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 12:26 · Score: 0

insightful!

Same was said about computers, though by MoggyMania · 2003-12-30 12:38 · Score: 1

"PDAs don't really need screens and keyboards if you can talk to them and they can talk to you..."

Yes and no, depending on what people are using them for. Originally, the same was said about computers -- that the keyboard/mouse would become useless once voice-recognition became reality -- but people quickly discovered that even when the technology worked wonderfully, they didn't really want to be stuck *saying* everything. There's also a larger proportion, I believe, of "visual" people out there than there are "auditory" ones, plus a lot of people also hate the sound of their own voice, or don't like having others "listen in" on their plans, or have other objections to speech-based input.

On the other hand, I agree that *something* is going to supplant the stylus/keyboard combo. I'm just not so sure, especially after dealing with Sony's voice recognition tech support system recently, that it will be voice-based. (I have a Clie NX60 that I love which includes a fairly nice-sized built-in keyboard, voice recorder, and the usual PalmOS on-screen input options... I dislike the keyboard immensely, but between on-screen input and speech, on-screen works for me.)

Personally, I'm hoping for more handheld systems that just give users the option between a variety of well-done integrated input types, rather than the "let's ALL do it way X" mentality that a lot of people seem to champion. That way those of us that prefer or even need one type over another can use that... My concern is always that "one type" will win out, excluding anybody that doesn't have a brain wired for that form of interaction, so those people have to use second-rate "adaptive equipment."

Europe pulls together, and ahead by Doc+Ruby · 2003-12-30 12:41 · Score: 1

With mobile translation devices, and even better translation servers for ubiquitous mobile phones, Europe's great disadvantage will now recede. The United States of America is possible due to shared language. With translation, the free travel and commerce in Europe will be bolstered by free speech across borders. Incidentally making the mobile phone as central to 21st Century European culture as the TV was to 20th Century American culture. I'd rather have the phones as my totem.

--

--
make install -not war

Welcome to America by Doc+Ruby · 2003-12-30 12:53 · Score: 1

People learn foreign languages when we must, rarely for curiosity, and almost never out of "respect". Americans can get what we want by asking in English. When we sometimes can't, we learn the language, like I finally did after years of lifeless school Spanish was finally revived in my adventures in San Francisco's largely unilingual Meximerican Mission district. Or my bare competence in "French" after a month in West Africa. Or my drinking survival skills in "Y'at" after living in New Orleans for years.

Nonamericans learn English when the must, out of economic or entertainment (or other cultural) necessity. Likewise have we always learned other foreign languages than English. The 20th Century was structured with a vast population of hundreds of millions of Americans who had what so many others wanted, including specialists fluent in foreign languages, acting as agents for unilingual Americans. As the world becomes more decentralized in communications, with more opportunities (and necessities) for Americans to speak foreign languages, we'll learn more. With America's diversity of origins, America will likely have the most foreign speakers. It already might, even if they're so overwhelmed by the more numerous unilingual that it's hard to notice. The tendency for non/English speakers to learn English is also amplified by the ample opportunites to do so, from the immersive, ubiquitous American media, to the acceptance of Americans of foreign mangling of English as we all mutate it into American. There's nothing especially insular about American culture, compared to others, that will prevent the growing multilingualism, and translation devices will help us all learn more about each other.

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make install -not war

Maturity of technology by Xconnect · 2003-12-30 13:15 · Score: 0

Just a personal assessment here. My feel is that while text translation has moved forward some, the use of voice translators is a totally different story. Look at it this way, the text translators have a hard time coping with the non-perfect manner that language is written, what more for voice translators where you have to cope with the nuances and tonal differences in even a single language e.g. different ways in which English is spoken in America and the rest of the world? The other thing which is tricky about language translation is coping with the idiosyncracies of a given profession e.g. medical field by the CM chaps. Certain terms or phrases just don't have an equivalent in the general language.

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--- root@127.0.0.1

Will it work on politicians? by leery · 2003-12-30 13:27 · Score: 2, Funny

How about the opposite sex? Parents? Now those would be Nobel-prize-worthy accomplishments.

--
"This is not a sig." -- R.

Re:Will it work on politicians? by oPless · 2003-12-30 15:52 · Score: 1

geek/technobabble - to - laymans English would be a much more worthy accomplishment.

Runners up, Conversion from
MarketingSpeak,
WomenSpeak,
InsuranceSpeak ,
LawyerSpeak

On a related note:

You can always tell when politicians lie ? ... Their lips move

boom tish ! Thanks, I'll be here for the rest of the year...

WHAT!?! by atheken · 2003-12-30 14:43 · Score: 1

There are places where English speakers are uncommon?

Get a dictionary... by beeplet · 2003-12-30 15:39 · Score: 1

I doubt any translation gadget will be more useful in any context than a good old-fashioned dictionary. The reason is: when you want to communicate something, words are often the smallest part of the message. Would people listen to you if you shoved a tape player in their face, even if the pre-recorded message was in their language? I wouldn't! But if you can speak just a few words of a foriegn language, and are willing to try to use them (plus gestures) face-to-face, the response is a lot more likely to be positive. Many people in other countries now assume Americans won't bother to learn their language (with good reason, apparently), and showing that you are interested enough to try makes a good impression...

Then, (and only then), maybe you can pull out the PDA with some hope that the person will have the patience to wait while it translates the details...

This is cooler than a case mod. by alcmaeon · 2003-12-30 17:44 · Score: 1

Just my opinion, of course.

A bad idea for most uses.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-30 19:58 · Score: 0

"I could see this as a boon to the tourist who travels to places where English speakers are uncommon."

A device that should be used for situations like medical emergencies only. *Not* for tourists, business, etc.

We should be enticing people to learn other languages (and more about the cultures of people that speak them) rather than making it easy for some societies to become even more ethnocentric.

Me so horny ~ by gelfling · 2003-12-31 00:53 · Score: 1

~Me love you long time.

To err is human by 1iar_parad0x · 2003-12-31 02:06 · Score: 1

The irony is that a computer will only become cogniscent when it begins to fail like a human. Yet, as a society, we aren't ready for our machines to make mistakes. If I have problems understanding someone who speaks my native tongue with a "heavy" accent, how can a computer be expected to do better? Someday computers may do a better job, but it still won't be perfect. That's the problem with statistics. Any statistically based mathematical model will never provide absolute predictability (take a look at Quantum Mechanics).

--
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....

US Education - Slightly OT by dave1g · 2003-12-31 04:21 · Score: 1

I wish as children that we would be tought 3 -5 languages in grade school.

Children of that age can easily pick up multiple languages.

It is sooo hard to learn foreign languages by the time you are a teeager and worse yet, our education system has mostly given up on teaching grammatical constructs more complicated than subject predicate until middle/high school.

I know more latin grammer than I do english because they actually teach it in latin class.

And once you get assusomted ot learning languages, other come to you more easily.

If it were up to me Everyone in american would learn English, Latin, German atleast, and possibly greek. Then we would know all the roots where out words come from. Once you know latin, the other romance languages become relativly easy.

Give it a few hundred years and there wont be an english, french, spanish, german. There will be just one language when people absorb the best constructs of each.

Re:Digital Divide grows larger by xtermin8 · 2003-12-31 05:33 · Score: 1

I's afraid your prediction will only apply to a wealthier minority. Particularly for Medicine: Until we get a Nationalized health system, there is virtually no way Standards would be put in place for digital exchange of medical information with PDAs. Maybe specific medical devices for specific conditions, but not PDAs. Perhaps wealthy baby boomers will receive benefits of the new PDA tech at the expense of everyone else. Most people will not be able to afford the hardware, software, or the training to use advanced PDA technology for quite a long time.

161 comments