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.

Comments

Small problem

[ArcadeMan]

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."

One annoyance...

[SuricouRaven]

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.

Re:NSA

[AK Marc]

Skype was never P2P, it was always connected through a central server. And the voice to text was always there, and will likely be how the NSA spies, as it's easier to search a transcript for "shiny bomb" than searching unindexed audio for the same thing.

The "new" thing here is reading the transcript real-time (well, real, after the translation is done).Voice to text is solved (not perfect). Translation is solved (not perfect), text to voice is solved (not perfect). This may be the first one to tie them all together, but doesn't break new ground.

Call me when Skype supports P2P connections, or IPv6.

Google+

[mmell]

Worthless. A complete failure. Except . . .

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 . . .

One annoyance...

[vikman]

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).

I tested this with the Italian translator

[Kittenman]

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)

Microsoft Marketing

[Tenebrousedge]

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.