New Voice-to-Voice Translation Technology

[Caseload]

New Voice-to-Voice Translation Technology

I saw this on the Discovery Science Channel Wednesday night and thought some of you guys would find this interesting if not helpful.

“Soldiers can't prevent the diplomatic misunderstandings that breed warfare, but the Pentagon hopes a handheld electronic interpreter in GIs' packs can prevent language barriers from claiming lives on the battlefield.

To be successful, such a gadget has to go way beyond the electronic phrase books and generic tourist directories available today.


A new device being tested at the Office of Naval Research shows a lot of promise, according to Joel Davis, a neurobiologist there. "We have good ones now; they'll be better in a few years, and eventually fantastic," he said.

Over the past several years, the Navy has pumped about $4 million into Davis' program to develop simultaneous machine translation and interpretation. On Friday, the Senate Armed Services Committee will see a demonstration of the choice fruit of that effort, a blend of voice recognition, speech synthesis and translation technologies called Interact.

"There are really a lot of competitors to this, and I've funded them, but no one has come quite close to this," Davis said of Interact, created by SpeechGear, a small startup in Northfield, Minnesota. Interact lets someone talk into the device in one language -- then it spits out an audio translation with just a two-second delay and no need for the speaker to pause.

After a demonstration for military brass last week and field tests in December at Navy Central Command in Bahrain, "we had to pry our demo model out of their hands," said Robert Palmquist, president and CEO of SpeechGear.

Unfortunately, however, Palmquist said the new Iraq war came a year too early for his product. In the current conflict, military personnel will have to rely on human interpreters and weathered pocket dictionaries to communicate with refugees, wounded civilians, prisoners and combatants.

The secret to Interact is not that it's a brand-new technology, but rather an amalgam of existing solutions.

The hardware comes from any electronics store: a Linux or Windows XP tablet PC with a microphone and speaker. When a user speaks into the Interact system, a voice-recognition program generates text that is then passed on to translation software. That program then bridges the two languages, and a voice synthesizer "reads" the translation out loud.

SpeechGear bundles Interact with a traditional electronic dictionary, called "Interprete," but specialized vocabulary for the military, hospitals, firefighters and others can also be added, as can personal word lists.”
Full Article: http://www.wired.com/news/gizmos/0,1452,58150,00.html
Company: http://www.speechgear.com/

Well guys, I'm hoping a few of you will give this a try and post your feedback for others to see. There is a free downloadable ten-day evolutionary version on the company's Web site. Please bear in mind that speech recognition software technology is not yet perfected. If you are patient, follow the instructions, work with the software and practice you will have much better results. How do I know this if I've never tried the software myself? I am currently writing this paragraph using speech recognition software called Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I'm not typing this I am talking and then the words appear on the screen. The software must be trained to recognize your voice and to understand how you speak. You also have to learn the software's capabilities and limitations. Examples of limitations are, too much background noise, mumbled speech and slurred speech. If you are in a noisy crowded bar getting drunk and slurring your words, then forget it, it's not going to work. LOL Of course the more you work with the software the better it becomes.
Good Luck and Let Us Know,
Richard Case

Richard, The whole voice deal seems very cool. I do have a question. The part where you say; "LOL Of course the more you work with the software the better it becomes." Did you actually "laugh out loud" and the computer typed LOL?

[toknight50]

You can train Dragon to do anything you want it to.

Example , a company I deal with is called Shop 'n Save and when I first started using Dragon I would say Shop 'n Save and it would print out shop and save. In the tool bar you put in the spelling that you would like and say it 10 to 20 times and the software figures it out. So if put LOL in the box and said (lots of laughs) 10 to 20 times and the software figures out that means LOL then everytime you say it it prints out LOL. Dragon can be bought on E-Bay for around $40.00 without a microphone. I normally use it for longer letters and e-mails and the more I use it the better it works its just like marriages practice, practice, and more practice.

[Lostagain]

I want to see it minaturized so you can put it in your ear like the Babble Fish of Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Imagine, just slip it into your ear, then you hear everything in your own language. If everyone did it, then you would never have to learn any other language other than the first one. What an opportunity! No more decisions on which verb conjugation and when it should be in the subjunctive. Heck, you could even do it for dialects of English, so when you went to certain parts of the country you could actually understand what they say. For example, I haven't the faintest idea of the logic of "down east."

[Caseload]

William is right you can train Dragon for any word not in its dictionary. I have not trained mine for ( LOL ), but I have trained it for other words. You can train it to type any word you like with any sound you like. Example: You could train it so that every time you say “****” it will type “Sh*t” if you like and so on.

You can use the translation software on a PDA or PDA/Cell Phone enabled with Blue Tooth along with a Blue Tooth Wireless Ear Piece Microphone.

[Bueller]

I just bought this program this evening, and am now speaking instead of typing. I was experiencing pain in my left forearm after buying my new laptop, and was really worried about suffering permanent injury. So far so good.

[Tinto]

Oi Bueller,

Can you send me the disk amigo?

Tacaño Tinto

Gentlemen,

We have good news.

I just approved Doug from www.lingoshop.com.

Doug has agreed to offer all GringoTalk members substantial discounts on all the Pimsleur complete comprehensive learning packages - Spanish and Portuguese.

[Tinto]

Richard and Bueller,

After using the Dragon program for awhile what's your opinion on it? Would you recommend it over typing?