Slashdot Mirror
IBM Smartphone Software Translates 11 Languages
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."
I can finally read that Japanese Slashdot?
I've always wondered what crazy stuff goes on over there, I mean they are on the CUTTING EDGE.
the german phrase "Mein Luftkissenfahrzeug ist voller Aale" was correctly translated as: "My hoovercraft is full of eels" However the Hungarian translation was completely wrong
J' hope for how that functions well!
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
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."
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?
My smartphone already does this - it's called google translate, and was a huge boon while I was overseas last month.
When they couple it with spoken word recognition