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Navy Unveils Polyglot Chat For Iraq

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the asl? dept.

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.'"

4 of 306 comments (clear)

  1. Language technology... by James+A.+J.+Joyce · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...is better than you may think. Though it is as difficult as everyone says to translate a random text from one language to another, translating short texts in a specialised domain between well-linked languages isn't too hard. Heck, they might even be able to get away with using lookup tables.

  2. Just teach everybody the Aggressor Language. by lifebouy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hey, like it or hate it, Esperanto can be taught in just a month or two, to a level allowing excellent communications. I think its great to have such software, but that doesn't help face to face, whereas everyone learning a neutral language will help in every situation. So if we are going to pour money down a funnel, lets pour it down the funnel that has long-term benifits for mankind.

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  3. You can do this, too by bmetz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sametime (IBM's instant messaging product for the enterprise) has had this for some time:

    http://jkent.dfw.ibm.com/ebia/doc/LTSS.html

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  4. Irony at it's finest... by b0z0mind · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...since Iraq was originaly the Babylonian empire :-)