Slashdot Mirror
Navy Unveils Polyglot Chat For Iraq
An anonymous reader writes "According to ScienceBlog, the U.S. Office of Naval Research, trying to keep friendly armies in Iraq from accidentally blowing each other to smithereens, is helping create software that connects instant messaging (IM) with machine translation (MT). The result: Chat software to be used in Iraq that automatically translates your messages into the correct language of the reader, called the the Coalition Chat Line - it's 'getting rave reviews from U.S. and allied-coalition personnel.'"
Here I found the link to the slashdot story.
someone a little more responsible and trained than 18 year old dropouts at the controls
I know it's hip to denigrate the education levels of the US military, but you couldn't be more wrong.
DoD has established a floor of 90% of recruits have HS diplomas.
The Army and Navy meet that 90%, the Marines at 95%, and the Air Force at 99%.
The military takes in very, very few Tier II (GED) or Tier III (non GED or non diploma) recruits. And those people must score at least in the top 1/2 (Army & Navy) or top 1/3 (USAF) on the ASVAB entrance exam.
And the typical 18 year old (brand new E-1 or E-2) is not at the controls of that thing by himself, if at all.
Two harriers and at least one helicopter
Got any further info on that? Because no, there was no British helo shot down in OIF by a Patriot.
March 23 - Tornado
April 2 - Possible F-18 Hornet
Patriot destroyed by F-16 after it locked on to the Viper