Speech-to-Speech Translator Developed For iPhone

Ponca City, We love you writes "Dr. Dobbs reports that Alex Waibel, professor of computer science and language technologies at Carnegie Mellon University, has developed an iPhone application that turns the iPhone into a translator that converts English speech into Spanish, or vice versa. Users simply speak a sentence or two at a time into the iPhone and the iPhone will respond with an audible translation. 'Jibbigo's software runs on the iPhone itself, so it doesn't need to be connected to the Web to access a distant server,' says Waibel. Waibel is a leader in speech-to-speech translation and multimodal speech interfaces, creating the first real-time, speech-to-speech translator for English, German and Japanese. 'Automated speech translation is an expensive proposition that has been supported primarily by large government grants,' says Waibel. 'But our sponsors are impatient to see this technology become more widely available and we, as researchers, are eager to find new revenues that will help us extend this technology to more of the 6,000 languages now spoken worldwide.'"

Comments

Testing the Hungarian version

[CharlyFoxtrot]

My nipples explode with delight !

Re:Testing the Hungarian version

[dkleinsc]

That's alright, I just want to see how well it translates "Dear Aunt, Let’s set so double the killer delete select all."

Re:Testing the Hungarian version

[Steve Newall]

My hovercraft is full of eels

Speak simply

[cerberusss]

Users simply speak a sentence or two at a time into the iPhone and the iPhone will respond with an audible translation.

I think that should be corrected to "Users speak simply...". When using Google Translate to translate something from Dutch to French or German, I often deliberately make simple sentences that I know can be parsed easily and without having to detect double meanings.

I mean, if Google Translate cannot do a good translation WITHOUT having to interpret sounds to words, then this tech will hardly be any better.

Yeah yeah I should be more positive...

Re:Speak simply

[Aladrin]

Also, have you seen Google Voice's attempted transcripts of voicemails? Things that I think are pretty clear come out in very, very odd ways.

Not that Google is the best at everything, but they usually do quite a bit better than average. I find it hard to believe someone has managed to best them at both of these technologies and their first attempt to market it is an iPhone app.

Re:Speak simply

[drinkypoo]

I mean, if Google Translate cannot do a good translation WITHOUT having to interpret sounds to words, then this tech will hardly be any better.

The device receives verbal cues that are missing from translating text to another language. In fact, there is far more information available, and perhaps it is possible to get clues about which version of a word is desired (or which of several similar-sounding words) from tone shift.

Re:Speak simply

[mauddib~]

Not that Google is the best at everything, but they usually do quite a bit better than average. I find it hard to believe someone has managed to best them at both of these technologies and their first attempt to market it is an iPhone app.

Not that I want to be called a nitpicker, but do you have any evidence? Does your average scale by market-value?

Re:Speak simply

[beanspud]

I do a lot of language translation, and it's pretty obvious to me that it requires understanding. Good automated translation is holodeck territory.

Re:Speak simply

[k.a.f.]

I mean, if Google Translate cannot do a good translation WITHOUT having to interpret sounds to words, then this tech will hardly be any better.

The device receives verbal cues that are missing from translating text to another language. In fact, there is far more information available, and perhaps it is possible to get clues about which version of a word is desired (or which of several similar-sounding words) from tone shift.

In theory, yes. (That's why our brains get more info from a spoken sentence than a written one.) In practice, not a chance in hell. Not until the state of the art advances by several breakthroughs.

Disclaimer: I am a computational linguist.

Re:Speak simply

[Olivier Galibert]

State-of-the-art is Moses for decoding with Giza++ for word-alignment for training. The MT domain has an egyptian naming tradition for some reason (Moses is the open-source successor to Pharaoh). OG.

Re:Speak simply

[R.D.Olivaw]

I just tried Moses' online demo for French-->English. 'J'aime pas le chocolat' is translated to 'I am not chocolate' and 'Je n'aime pas le chocolat' to 'I do not like the choclate'
I guess state-of-the-art is still far from perfect too. The GP's point still stands.

Re:Speak simply

[Anonymous Coward]

But are you cunning?

Re:Speak simply

[VeNoM0619]

(I am a native French speaker.)

Well, in that case you may not entirely understand English. Perhaps you really are not chocolate, have you checked lately?

On Other Phones

[Deviate_X]

This has been around for few years now on other phones symbion, windows, android by http://www.speereo.com/ Enjoy ;)

Vamos!

[neoform]

Vamos a arruinar una bonita playa.

oblig Futurama quote

[Coraon]

Professor Hubert Farnsworth: [Professor Farnsworth is showing Cubert, his clone, some of his inventions] And this is my Universal Translator. Unfortunately, so far it only translates into an incomprehensible dead language. Cubert J. Farnsworth: [into the translator's microphone] Hello. Universal Translator: Bonjour! Professor Hubert Farnsworth: Crazy gibberish!

Where do I put the fish again?

[EnigmaticSource]

Parece que he perdido mi copia de la guía, pero como yo soy un príncipe de Nigeria, con mucho gusto a comprar uno por $ 10 millones de dólares EE.UU., si usted me ayudará a transferir fondos de mi hermano, que ha robado mi difunto padre trono. Por favor, responda con su información bancaria para que podamos ayudarnos mutuamente.

Re:A suggestion

[nneonneo]

Watch the video. The app has two "textboxes" corresponding to the two languages, and a record button underneath each. After you record the message, the interpreted text shows up in the top, and the translated text in the bottom, followed by a robotic reading of the translation. So yes, it shows the English phrase, and if the video is real then this technology shows some real promise.

Re:Why 6,000 languages?

[MrMr]

We use the other languages to make fun of you.

Re:No, no, you've got it all wrong...

[legojenn]

Until we all spreak Esperanto, I would hope that it contains an American to British English translator too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IX6K77zHwg

(Not the Chaser's best, but will do.)