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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.'"

12 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. Testing the Hungarian version by CharlyFoxtrot · · Score: 5, Funny

    My nipples explode with delight !

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    If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
    1. Re:Testing the Hungarian version by dkleinsc · · Score: 4, Funny

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

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      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    2. Re:Testing the Hungarian version by Steve+Newall · · Score: 4, Funny

      My hovercraft is full of eels

  2. On Other Phones by Deviate_X · · Score: 4, Informative

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

  3. Vamos! by neoform · · Score: 4, Funny

    Vamos a arruinar una bonita playa.

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    MABASPLOOM!
  4. oblig Futurama quote by Coraon · · Score: 5, Funny

    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!

    --
    -Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
  5. Where do I put the fish again? by EnigmaticSource · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

    --
    The Geek in Black
    I know my BCD's (when I'm Sober)
  6. Re:Speak simply by mauddib~ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?

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    This is a replacement signature.
  7. Re:Speak simply by beanspud · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

  8. Re:Speak simply by k.a.f. · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  9. Re:Speak simply by R.D.Olivaw · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  10. Re:Speak simply by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    But are you cunning?