Sci-fi tech in the real world

[RangerWickett]

From Slashdot - Slashdot Apple Story | Speech-to-Speech Translator Developed For IPhone

"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 an 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.'"

Just remember this the next time you're playing a cyberpunk or sci-fi game. There's practically no reason to put skill points into other languages, since any decent cell phone will probably be able to translate a dozen languages at least.

I need to reread the rules for Eclipse Phase to see if they bother with languages.

 

[Krensky]

[/i]Just remember this the next time you're playing a cyberpunk or sci-fi game. There's practically no reason to put skill points into other languages, since any decent cell phone will probably be able to translate a dozen languages at least.

I need to reread the rules for Eclipse Phase to see if they bother with languages.

Spoken like a tourist.

Speaking the language on the ground, preferably like a native, is always more useful then even the best translator.

 

[Andor]

Spoken like a tourist.

Speaking the language on the ground, preferably like a native, is always more useful then even the best translator.

Agreed. Go to babelfish and ask it to translate something into a language you speak. You'll probably be horrified.

Even if the translation is very good, there is no way it can capture things like nuance and humour which are often language specific. Japanese for example contains a truckload of homonyms and they love to make puns useing them. You'll never get that from a translator app.

EDIT: But yeah, tech is getting crazy cool. ^^

 

[Janx]

Spoken like a tourist.

Speaking the language on the ground, preferably like a native, is always more useful then even the best translator.

If you can't speak the language, having your cell phone translate is more useful than not understanding the natives.

And it means you can put more ranks in firearms, which ultimately solves any communication problem.

 

[Umbran]

Just remember this the next time you're playing a cyberpunk or sci-fi game.

Because, we all know that when you're under automatic weapons fire, and you need to get the tactical plan across to your allies-of-the-moment, what you want to have to do is whip out your cell phone.

 

[Andor]

Because, we all know that when you're under automatic weapons fire, and you need to get the tactical plan across to your allies-of-the-moment, what you want to have to do is whip out your cell phone.

C'mon... It's cyberpunk! Everyone has their cell phone surgically implanted in their cheeks!

 

[Aeolius]

C'mon... It's cyberpunk! Everyone has their cell phone surgically implanted in their cheeks!

but it muffles incoming calls when you'e sitting...

 

[RangerWickett]

I'd actually prefer, for novelty's sake, ocular implants that put subtitles over my vision, instead of acoustically translating.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I'd actually prefer, for novelty's sake, ocular implants that put subtitles over my vision, instead of acoustically translating.

Too distracting. You would be unable to monitor body language simultaneously and therefore lose information. The fact that human "language" is actually so multi-modal is why it's so rich.

 

[pawsplay]

From Slashdot - Slashdot Apple Story | Speech-to-Speech Translator Developed For IPhone



[/I]Just remember this the next time you're playing a cyberpunk or sci-fi game. There's practically no reason to put skill points into other languages, since any decent cell phone will probably be able to translate a dozen languages at least.

Sure. One sentence at a time. Have you ever transcribed normal speech? It doesn't work that way. I figure we can dispense with learning other languages about the time we are able to get computers to write translation software and create passable jokes and poetry.