
Google Turns Your Android Phone Into An On-The-Fly Conversation Interpreter - lotusleaf1987
http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/12/android-translations/
======
ghshephard
This is almost moving Kurzweil's prediction from "mostly correct" to
"correct".

"Early 2000s

    
    
        * Translating telephones allow people to speak to 
          each other in different languages.
        * Machines designed to transcribe speech into 
          computer text allow deaf people to understand 
          spoken words."
    

Every time he notches another victory, I pay closer and closer attention to
his other guesses that are 10 - 30 years out.

~~~
abecedarius
How well does this system handle your second bullet point (transcription for
conversation with the deaf)? I have a use for that but, not having an Android
phone yet, I can't just try it out.

~~~
michaelbuckbee
Dragon Dictate is available for both iPhone and Android which would seem
sufficient for a face to face conversation (or at least better than the
alternative).

------
michaelbuckbee
What's most interesting to me is that Google seems to be moving forward with a
strategy of competing with iOS via services instead of just applications.

Services (like Conversation Mode translate, constantly updated turn by turn
GPS driving directions, more deeply integrated Google Talks) give them
leverage against the carriers, who have to meet Google guidelines for Android
in order to include the flagship apps and represent a really high bar that
Apple would have to overcome to compete.

I realize it isn't exactly as cut and dried as services vs applications, but
it is certainly a strong move that plays to Google's strengths.

~~~
nostrademons
I suspect that mobile in general will move towards services instead of
applications. There's a lot of data crunching that you can do when you have a
data collection device in every person's pockets, but doing that crunching on
the client will drain your batteries it to time. I predict that the really
interesting mobile apps will have a thin (but native) client that only does
data collection & UI, and then the most computationally interesting piece will
be hosted in the cloud somewhere.

------
Andrenid
In the last 6-12 months alone i'm really starting to see "the future" that I
dreamed of as a kid.

Between this article, <http://questvisual.com/>, Microsoft Kinect, Nintendo
3DS, Microsoft Surface 2 (first version didn't impress me, was so huge and
clunky), Amazon's Kindle 3 (huge fan of HHGTTG, the Kindle basically IS the
guide) etc...

As a life-long nerd/geek, it's pretty awe-inspiring.

~~~
othello
I would also add to that list the Emotiv kit (<http://www.emotiv.com>), which
allows "to create applications that can be controlled by your mind" by making
use of the same type of technology that allows paralytics to control robotic
arms.

Actually, the technology alone is highly impressive, but that an SDK is
available to anyone for $299 is nothing short of mind-boggling.

~~~
MichaelApproved
$299 for the device + $500 for the sdk.

~~~
roschler
No. The $500 Developer edition includes both the SDK and the device (headset).

------
kenjackson
Take this and Word Lens like capability -- if I was in junior high, I'd make
the argument that there's no need for me to learn a foreign language. In a few
years, I can speak and write any language there is!

~~~
alextp
This might save you some time/money, but it certainly can't bridge the gap
between different languages. Keep in mind that "to translate is to betray"
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traduttore,_traditore>

~~~
throw_away
Doug Hofstadter of GEB fame wrote an interesting book on this called Le Ton
Beau de Marot (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Ton_Beau_de_Marot>) where he
argued that 100% translation was pretty much impossible, and machine
translation in particular. In that book he translated one poem from French to
English thirty-six times, each time capturing some nuance of the original, but
showing that no single translation could possibly capture everything.

------
spiffworks
Just tried it, works only for the English-Spanish pair right now, but the
reliability is pretty good considering that they're calling it an Alpha.

~~~
gms
The real question is how far it will move from alpha, if at all.

------
pfarrell
My hovercraft is full of eels. Sorry, couldn't resist. Natural language
processing, could we really see major improvements in our lifetimes? My gut
tells me there are so many nuances to the way we work that the best we can get
to will have to include many of the inconsistencies we have in understanding
each other.

~~~
erikstarck
The vodka is strong but the meat is rotten.

------
fhars
Except that if you actually travel in parts of the world where you would need
this service, international data roaming charges for accessing this service
will be so outrageous that it may just be cheaper to hire a professional
interpreter to travel with you.

------
johnyzee
Has anyone else been waiting for this 'invention' forever? Between speech
recognition and machine translation it seemed to be a solved problem for the
longest time.

------
trurl123
At first google should improve <http://translate.google.com> to show valid
translations.

------
andrewljohnson
Douglas Adams was mostly right. It's just not a fish.

------
tocomment
AnyOne know when this will be available to install? I'm itching to try it out.

------
pedanticfreak
I have nothing meaningful to contribute, but I want to say this is a
monumental step forward.

Some people here seem to predict this heralds the end of language education
for most people. Maybe that's true. But I actually think this will contribute
to earlier and more frequent exposure to foreign languages. And that may
ultimately do more for language learning than compulsory education ever did.

------
JunkDNA
"Google is quick to note that this is very much an alpha feature. In other
words, expect a lot of hiccups. They note that background noise, thick
accents, and quick speech can all trip up the app."

Wow, so it's not practically useful very frequently?

~~~
minalecs
dude.. google is getting closer to a real time universal speech translator and
you find a way to be unimpressed. What does impress you ?

~~~
JunkDNA
I didn't intend for that comment to sound quite as snarky as it did. But my
point is that real time speech translation needs to work precisely in those
situations. Voice recognition and computerized translation have been around
for a while. They are nearly always stymied by the problems mentioned in the
article we have been "close" to this for at least a decade. What would impress
me is if they had developed new algorithms to overcome these exceptionally
challenging problems.

~~~
jokermatt999
_Voice recognition and computerized translation have been around for a while._

Now your reaction makes sense. If you're viewing at as an advance in the
technology here (research wise, etc), then this announcement has nothing new.
But from a standpoint of anyone with an Android phone having access to this
whenever they want (accessibility and ease of use), this is incredible. I
think most people are concerned with the latter, but you do have a point about
there being nothing "new" here.

