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Star Trek-like 'Phraselator' Helps Police
coondoggie writes "Yet another Star Trek-like device is making its way into the real world. VoxTec's Phraselator name sounds a bit like something the Three Stooges might have used long ago but no, this PDA-like device was developed through Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for use in Afghanistan and Iraq by American soldiers for communicating with locals who spoke Farsi, Dari, Pashto and other languages. It is now being used as one tool to help keep the peace between English and non-English speakers by police departments in California, Florida, Nevada. In a nutshell the $2,500 ruggedized Phraselator runs an Intel PXA255 400mHz processor that supports a built-In noise canceling microphone, a VOCON 3200 Speech Recognizer, 1GB removable SD card, 256MB of DRAM Memory and 64MB Flash Memory. It can store up to 10,000 phrases."
"I thought she was asking for sex, turns out she just wanted directions to the 7-11. Oopsies!"
Sure baby, I'll give you my phone number...in Hex
The summary is the first 3 paragraphs of the article and, not surprisingly, fails to summarize the article. So when you actually go and read the article you get the feeling that maybe it is an example of how poor automatic translation is, as the article has incredibly horrid grammar.. to the point that the whole second half of the article makes no sense.
Oh, and when you finally do figure out what the hell this article is about, it's boring as hell.. who cares about a mobile language translator device with text-to-speech that doesn't even do speech recognition? Travelers have been able to pick up such technology for $50 for a decade now.
Yawn.
How we know is more important than what we know.
This is pretty good, but it still doesn't solve the problem that the officer can't understand the other individual. This could lead to some problems. Now, an officer may wait for backup that speaks the language, or proceed forward knowing that he/she cannot understand the other person and vice-a-versa.
Now, due to this device, officers could think they are making themselves clear, and behave differently, (i.e. I said get down, and I said it in your language, now get down or I shoot), but the other side could be saying something important and can't be understood.
-"Those who fought today will die tommorow."-
Citizen: Someone's planted a bomb in there!
Phraselator: "Somebody set up us the bomb."
Soldier: What you say!!
The reason they're not using it in all major cities is simple,... it won't translate jive . So it's useless in the ghetto,... I guess we'll still have to look for little, old, white ladies that speak jive!
Aliens: "Bak Bak, BaBa Bak Bak, BAK BAK BAK"
Translator: "We come in peace, we mean you no harm!"
"See? They mean us no harm!"
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Now the police can safely ignore the Spanish equivalent of "Don't tase me, bro"!
WHAT?? Let me explain. What this means is that the guy who wrote the comment is the owner of a hovercraft, and he's complaining that it's full of eels.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
For further information, please visit this page.
It's the US Government (and the military no less)!!! You can sell anything to them, no matter how poorly marketed, expensive, or functional it is, especially if it ties in with the "war on terror"
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
DON'T PHRASE ME BRO!
Jenny's got a new number! 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
A microphone for mimes?
we have one in my platoon. did we use it at all in the 15 months we were in iraq? nope! why? interpreters work better and stop bullets.
Translation of "AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH" from other common languages:
Russian: "You are correct, I should not have been reading that book, comrade."
German: "I apologize for being too Jewish, and will now board the crowded yet impressively prompt train."
Canadian: "Oh darn. Iced the puck again."
Japanese: "I believe the voice actress for my favorite anime is making an appearance nearby."
French: "My cheese!" or "You appear to be trying to add a non-French word to the French language", depending on context.
American: "It appears my Tivo did not record this week's episode of Lost."
Mandarin: "Hello."
"Australian": "Crikey, look at the size of that stingra--"
Jamaican: (nobody has ever heard this phrase from a Jamaican)
Anybody left I didn't offend?
...like all translation devices up to day:
Police: Ok Stan, this is a dangerous situation but our new Phraselator 4000 will deal with the situation, just talk into the mike:
Stan: Everything will be just fine, just drop your weapons.
Phraselator 4000: Every Bill be Your time, you topless weapon.
Terrorist: Allah will punish you, infidel!
Phraselator 4000: Allah will puke you, insurance!
Stan: (looks at the other officers and talks)
Stan: This is your second and final warning, drop down your weapons - NOW!
Phraselator 4000: Piss is your semicolon and finally warm, top down groove you weapon - HOW?
Stan: I don't think this is working, sir...
Phraselator 4000: I don't think, piss is lurking, sir...
Stan: Will you shut that useless piece of cr*p down!!
Terrorist: In soviet russia - camel piss on you!
(*everyone fires their guns, Phraselator 4000 has saved the day - once again*)
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
You must have gone through a lot of interpreters.
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