

Microsoft shows off universal translator that preserves your voice - mrsebastian
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/122083-microsoft-unveils-universal-translator-that-converts-your-voice-into-another-language

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nextparadigms
Microsoft has been showing off a lot of these lab projects lately. I guess
they think it helps with their marketing. The problem is they've not just
started working on these types of projects. Their R&D has always been doing
stuff like this, but either they never seem to come out in products, or if
they do, it happens a decade later. So other than marketing bragging rights,
this is all pretty pointless if they don't show up in products at all, or not
for a decade.

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maigret
There is some point in what you write, and I wouldn't have downvoted you. But
there are counterexamples, like the Surface for example.

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corin_
In reply to ocdprogrammer's dead comment:

> _And where is Surface ? Is it available to buy somewhere ?(I never saw a
> single trace of it in europe) I have a feeling that Surface is already
> either too expensive or too obsolete._

I can't speak to what happened to it commercially, but it definitely _was_
available to buy - I organised a demo of it at a trade show in 2010. Since
then haven't really paid attention to it, I know a second version of it came
out, but no idea how well it did or is doing.

~~~
king_magic
I do Surface development. Surface v2 isn't that great, TBH. Lots of hardware
issues. Lighting is still a huge problem.

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politician
I believe something similar was developed at CMU under the name ABBY. I wonder
if they are the same; nevertheless, the CMU tech was impressive - real-time
translation with voice characteristic preservation. We wanted to use it to
develop a plugin for Skype for international business, but it didn't pan out.
A missed opportunity in my opinion. However, now that Microsoft owns Skype,
maybe we can expect an announcement soon.

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ecocentrik
The samples in the article don't do a very good job of demoing the technology.

You can download an mp3 of the talk:
<http://msrvideo.vo.msecnd.net/rmcvideos/160725/dl/160725.mp3> forward to
19:25 for a demo of english and mandarin

the full explanation of the system starts at 12:00

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ck2
The mp4 has video
<http://msrvideo.vo.msecnd.net/rmcvideos/160725/dl/160725.mp4>

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Revisor
_For example, Microsoft’s standard model of Spanish will have a default “S”
(ess) sound, but the training process replaces it with your “S” sound. This is
done for every individual sound (phoneme)_

I don't think it can work as a phoneme for phoneme replacement; there must be
a different heuristic at work.

Different languages have different phonemes and one of the most telling things
of a non-expert non-native speaker is that they don't get the sounds right.

Eg "E" is pronounced differently in English, German and Czech. Japanese
speakers don't differentiate between "L" and "R". Spanish "C" is in some
contexts different to "C"s in other languages. Etc.

Obviously you can't pronounce a sound that you don't even know exists.

I would love to hear more examples.

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chimeracoder
> Obviously you can't pronounce a sound that you don't even know exists.

It's possible that they could interpolate those sounds. For example, Bengali
has a sound that's halfway between a 'd' and a 't'. Using some statistical
heuristics, it's possible that they could approximate that letter using your
pronunciations of 'd' and 't' (and knowing how bilingual Bengali-English
speakers who pronounce 'd' and 't' similarly to how you do also pronounce that
letter).

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runeks
Impressive technology. But this doesn't really solve the problem of accurately
translating from one language to another, with all the ambiguities of
language, does it? I mean, as far as I can tell, the really hard part is
completely transferring the meaning of something spoken/written in one
language into another. Sometimes it's obviously just not possible (like
certain jokes, etc.). Most of the time though, it's just very hard to do with
software.

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dualogy
Sure, this is hard to do with software but given that 99% of people are way
worse at 99.5% of the planet's languages... a we have a massive improvement
right there.

~~~
maigret
Or they just all speak English? Living in another country that speaks another
language, my translation skills are only rarely needed.

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freehunter
This is really frustrating to me. "Learn German! It's the language of business
in Europe!" Now when I'm in Germany, people speak English to me even when I
say "auf Deutsch, bitte." Somewhere along the line, I must have picked up an
accent in German, because some people even assume I'm from France and start
speaking French to me. I'm B1 level in German (used to be B2, but it's
slipping) and have no use for it outside of academic pursuits.

About the only language that is useful to me living in the northern US is
French (being that my company does business in Quebec). Sometimes Spanish is
helpful (we also do business in southern Florida). But the problems with
learning these languages is it's not French you need to learn, it's Canadian
French. It's not Spanish you need to learn, it's Mexican Spanish (/Cuban
Spanish/Latin Spanish/Caribbean Spanish, however you want to classify it).

Good luck finding excellent self study (like memrise.com) classes in regional
dialects.

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mc32
>...it's not French you need to learn, it's Canadian French. It's not Spanish
you need to learn, it's...

Is that level necessary? It's not as if a Qubequois would _not_ understand
Standard French, or that a Cuban would not understand standard
Spanish/Castillian. At least, I would hope it's not like that. It would be as
if we'd need some translation to understand British English (coming from NAm).
There is a bit getting used to an accent and some lexicon, but nothing that
isn't overcome within a few interactions (with some exceptions).

~~~
freehunter
It's not that they need to understand me (which I doubt they would have a
problem with), it's that I need to be able to understand _them_. If I'm
introductory in a language, all I'm really going to be doing is listening for
keywords and piecing the meaning together with a small amount of grammar
knowledge. That doesn't work when their words are different or sound different
than what my brain is looking for.

Also, there are some people in the world who will pretend they don't
understand you if you don't speak their language perfectly (looking at you,
Finland!)

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binarymax
Makes me think of Iron Man, when Gweneth Paltrow clicks on the 'Translate'
button in the terrorist video, and it was the original voice but translated
into English. I never thought it would actually be possible, but this looks
pretty interesting.

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shasta
This technology, once perfected, will usher in a new era of fraud and crank
calls.

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sbornia
I don't understand the samples in the article. The English audio says
something, and the Spanish audio translates to "Welcome to TechFest 2012, were
today you will see first-hand how Microsoft Research is studying the key
technological tendencies that will define the XXI century." which is
completely different.

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bproper
Listening to the two audio samples in the report, I would say the voices don't
sound very similar and the translated one sounds very mechanical.

~~~
razzaj
Not only that; I think the contents do not match; I am no spanish speaker but
i detected some words that do not exist in the english version. so unless i
have missed something...

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mrsebastian
Hey! I'm the author of the story.

I think Technology Review got them mixed up (which is where I got the audio
samples from). I first saw it in the TechFest keynote:
<http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/dl.aspx?id=160725>

I think Technology Review has an English clip from Mundie, but then
translations of Rick Rashid speaking in the keynote.

Sorry about the mix-up :(

(And I wish I spoke another language...)

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treenyc
While the technology is very impressive, as a native Chinese/English speaker,
I can tell you that the mixture of Chinese and English demonstrated is only
useful for bilingual speaker like myself.

Also watching the demo of this presentation in contrast with Apple's keynote I
can really see a world of difference on how two companies communicate with
their customers.

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nod
(Pet peeve) This is not a universal translator! Until you show me a translator
that can learn a _new_ language, you're just building a common multi-language
translator.

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eridius
I know it's Microsoft, but why are they using Windows Media for web video in
2012? I don't want to install Flip4Mac just to watch the demo.

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ot
There is a link to the iPod (MP4) version in the MSR page, I'm watching it
right now from Chrome/Mac:

<http://msrvideo.vo.msecnd.net/rmcvideos/160725/dl/160725.mp4>

