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Ars Reviews Skype Translator
Esra Erimez writes Peter Bright doesn't speak a word of Spanish but with Skype Translator he was able to have a spoken conversation with a Spanish speaker as if he was in an episode of Star Trek. He spoke English. A moment later, an English language transcription would appear, along with a Spanish translation. Then a Spanish voice would read that translation.
now NSA can listen in on any Skype conversation worldwide and have it conveniently translated for them without needing extra staff. pretty sweet!
The translation went well, but...
The first thing that Peter heard was "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
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The translation is only available if you use Windows 8.
There's no technical reason for this. It's a simple business issue. Microsoft wants people to upgrade to Windows 8. Microsoft owns Skype. So it's obvious what happened: Someone called the Skype management and told them that any new features are to be Windows 8 exclusive in future.
I'm really surprised Microsoft haven't ordered the linux client discontinued yet.
It's a reverse tachyon pulse from the main deflector that does it.
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It's a reverse tachyon pulse from the main deflector that does it.
Just be careful though. One tachyon out of place, and you have 30 seconds of suspenseful mucic, then a core breach!
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It just so happens to have a video chat capability that integrates quite well into the Android ecosystem. It's actually superior in some ways to Skype, but (being part of Google +) nobody has ever heard of it - not even the NSA (?). Microsoft doesn't want to screw Skype up badly enough to force people to discover any of a number of alternatives. RIght now, the only thing maintaining Skype's dominance in video chat is the size of the user base. Force [Linux|Android|iOS|downlevel M$] users to find an alternative and that advantage disappears. Users are so damned fickle that way . . .
I work on Skype Translator. Given the complexity of the technology in the back-end, the team looked for a client code base that was fast to experiment with, develop and release on - and so the modern windows 8 app seems like a good way to go - no other nefarious reason. Also, users of skype translator can call other Skype clients (Skype Desktop is officially supported, while I have certainly called ios, xbox on other clients successfully).
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I noticed that once I cut off the video stream, the meaning of what I was saying changed completely.
(Con apologie per nostri amici Italiani)
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
how can you possibly not link to an a/v demo or review of this, in the thread OR in the review???
I went looking on youtube and found a metric crapton of copies of the MS demo. I don't want to watch the publisher's demo, of course it's going to be flawless. (and quite possibly rigged) They've successfully flooded the actual honest review demos into oblivion on youtube. Anyone got a link to a review with A/V test?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
This is something we've been able to do for ages now in FreeSWITCH. I'm pretty sure that the more complex the speech input, the less accurate the system gets as human language is very difficult to decode as a machine. If this wasn't the case, we wouldn't be yelling at those IVR systems that ask us to say X to speak to Nina in corporate accounts payable and we always end up getting transferred to Milton instead...
how can you possibly not link to an a/v demo or review of this, in the thread OR in the review???
So they could sneak in a subtle advertisement for Surface tablets. The reviewer does not seem to have been allowed to take his own photos or video, given that the photo credit is for Microsoft.
Also, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo." The article states clearly that this did not work outside of conditions that were carefully controlled by Microsoft. On that note, the writer exclusively covers Microsoft news.
All in all, this should be treated as a press release, not a review.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Well, I can only judge the quality of the automated translation with regards to the second screenshot in TFA (EnglishGerman) and I have to say that it's just as miserable, and also hardly intelligible, as I had expected. It is even worse than what you would get with Google Translate. Obviously neither of the two involved speak a word of German, otherwise they had never used this for their article.
Example:
Source: "oh ok, nevermind about that call I got it"
My translation: "oh ok, schon gut wegen des Anrufs, habe verstanden"
Skype translation: "über diesen Anruf habe ich es"
Actual meaning of Skype's translation: "over this call I have it"
I suspect that without some proficiency in the source language, you will hardly ever be able to comprehend what the meaning of the translated sentences is.
It is the same problem with all current-gen computer assisted translation that there is so much ambiguity in human language. Another very good example for that can also be seen in that screenshot where "second" was translated as "zweite" which is one possible translation but actually "Sekunde" would be correct.
Until this is resolved, I would not exactly call it technology like from an episode of Star Trek.