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IBM Smartphone Software Translates 11 Languages

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the open-source-and-share-the-fun dept.

coondoggie writes to mention that IBM researchers have an internal smartphone software project that is capable of translating text between English and 11 other languages (Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Italian, Russian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Arabic). There are no concrete plans to release this as a public product, but IBM certainly isn't shutting out that possibility. "Hosted as an internal IBM service since August 2008, n.Fluent offers a secure real-time translation tool that translates text in web pages, electronic documents, same-time instant message chats, and provides a BlackBerry mobile translation application. According to IBM, the software was developed from an internal IBM crowd-sourcing project where Big Blue's nearly 400,000 employees in more than 170 countries submit, update and continuously refine word translations. Every time it's used, n.Fluent 'learns' and improves its translation engine. To date, the tool has been used by IBMers to translate more than 40 million words, IBM stated."

13 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Gene Roddenberry was prescient. by MichaelSmith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah Robert Heinlein's characters had cellular phones in the late 1940's but I wouldn't claim he was the first. The only bit he got wrong was where a character ends a call because he is in a crowded area. That wouldn't happen today.

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  2. 40 Million Words by Nerdfest · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So basically, the fine print on one of their service contracts.

  3. famous translation gaff by sfcat · · Score: 3, Insightful
    What I want to know is if it can translate:

    The spirit is will but the flesh is weak.

    Other systems in the past has translated this English idiom into all sorts of laughable text but my favorite is

    The vodka is tempting, but the meat's a bit suspect

    There are many other famously wrong translations of idioms Admittedly, idioms are difficult to translate, but its not like the users will understand this or care. They just want a reasonable translation so they don't end up looking like an idiot to the cute foreign girl they are trying to bed.

    --
    "Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
    1. Re:famous translation gaff by chill · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Whenever anyone brings up machine translation there is always someone on Slashdot brings up this particular example, like it is some litmus test or something.

      I hate to say it, but I solved this one personally a few minutes after first seeing the problem. I noticed my computer had gigabytes of drive space, and I had a friend that was fluent in both Russian and English. I asked him to translate the phrase for me, the whipped up a perl script to give the correct translation.

      Considering computers are so good at simple table lookups, just have HUMANS do the hard stuff and store it in a table. The easy stuff, such as simple sentences and common stuff, can be done by computer.

      Whatever happened to that project where Google was getting professional translations from the U.N. and building a database?

      --
      Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
    2. Re:famous translation gaff by sfcat · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes, you caught me. Some easy karma whoring but I still like the example and its good for a laugh. But idioms change with time and can be used in very fluid ways especially in social contexts. Basically what I'm saying is that computers still suck at understanding context with respect to natural language processing of all kinds. I've spent a considerable amount of my career trying to solve NLP problems but this one is a very tough nut to crack. But this doesn't change the fact that the user doesn't know or care about the difficulty of translating idioms as they just want their problem solved. Translation engines are getting much better and I would bet that this one is pretty good too. However, its not like we will have a universal translator anytime soon and probably not in our lifetimes. Somethings computers are better at and somethings people are better at. Understanding the weird ways that humans communicate isn't one of the things computers are good at. Its likely to stay that way for a long time and maybe that is okay. At least its a challenge right?

      --
      "Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
    3. Re:famous translation gaff by bronney · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Hey, looking like an idiot to the cute foreign girl is EXACTLY what's gonna get you in bed! :)

    4. Re:famous translation gaff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      How can you expect a machine to translate it right when a human can't get the spelling right?

      The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

      I think it applies to you perfectly, intelligence wise.

  4. I don't understand the "smartphone" distinction. by Seor+Jojoba · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If the software is calling a web service that performs the translation, then on the smartphone the software is trivial--a simple client that gets some user input, sends it to the internet, and receives translated text back. If this is the case, then there's no point in calling it "smartphone software", the brains are all on a server somewhere. And that server software deserves to be compared apples-to-apples to other online translation services like say... Babel Fish, to determine how worthy it is. Adding the "smartphone software" bit seems like a marketing ploy.

  5. Re:Translators by FishOuttaWater · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hmm... "capable of translating text between English and 11 other languages (Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Italian, Russian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Arabic)." Nope. Don't see Female on the list. Perhaps that's why they're not productizing it. Can it really be that useful if you can't understand (roughly) half the people on the planet?

  6. Lost in the translation could be a problem by Orion+Blastar · · Score: 2, Insightful

    like this example of Hungarian to English translation.

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    Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
  7. I'll be impressed when by robwgibbons · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When they couple it with spoken word recognition

  8. Re:Gene Roddenberry was prescient. by rachit · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yep, today, the phone call would just be dropped due to the network being overloaded... :)

  9. They should definately license as engine by Ilgaz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have seen some amazing, absolutely amazing things made by IBM and got wasted by "mainframe like" marketing.

    One of recent examples is XL Compiler stuff, last time I checked, some mainframe reseller was trying to sell it for $600 with horribly designed (front page!) page. Until PowerPC developers on Mac could trial it, damn Apple switched to Intel :) I use it as good example why that sad decision to switch to Intel was right thing.

    I have seen MPEG4 decoder/player written in Java, in JVM 1.1 ages. Imagine what would happen if a company other than IBM did it. Funny enough, it still exists in Alphaworks site and it uses _less_ CPU than Adobe Flash :)

    Their "Via Voice", coming free with OS/2 4.0 was already amazing, right before it got totally wasted, some clever company bought the engine rights, mixed with another engine and still does extremely well with "naturally speaking".

    I think Nuance (owner of T9) would do great job marketing this technology. It is their line of business.

    Hardware vendor like Nokia or RIM would imprison into their devices ROM, they aren't really better than IBM for such purposes. I am a Nokia owner and I see some real pathetic stuff going on. Apple is out of question even.