One Step Closer to Star Trek: Sakhr offers Voice-to-Voice Automated Translation
By Simon Sage on Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 at 2:13 PM PST In Applications, BlackBerry
Yeah, you’re really clever for getting the tricorder sound effect to play when popping the slide on your phone, but can you make it work as a universal translator like the dorky little pins Starfleet troops wear? Maybe not yet, but Sakhr Software is taking the first steps with their two-way English/Arabic voice-to-voice translation application for BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM). The video really says it all – speak in, check the transcription in text, out comes the robot voice in the other language. Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Translate has given automated translation a bad rap, although it’s certainly functional, as demonstrated by the one Arabic-to-English demonstration. Let’s face it: this kind of stuff makes you realize the future is right now. Instant audio translation is something people made jokes about not long ago, and here we are, the first steps being made. It would take awhile to have a proper conversation with Sakhr’s app, but software like this will tear down some serious language barriers in the future. No word on availability or pricing, but go ahead and get in touch with the devs over here.
I was so blown away by the idea of this demo when I first saw the i-phone version, that I didn’t stop to be sceptical about whether this is a real demo, or a faked mock up.
Just replay the first example (up to about 23 secs) and he says “…plan FOR SHIPPING the medical supplies”.
What does the transcription say on the screen (26 secs)? “…plan TO SHIP the medical supplies”.
Given the accuracy of the rest of the transcription, it makes me pretty certain that the text was very much already in the Blackberry, and that it was the guy who was reading from a script that misread it (just human error reading text).
Call me anal and sceptical, but hell it would change the world if they actuall make it a real product!
now this is really accurate to the point of scrutiny. I hope it’s gonna see light soon.
I dunno, the company has already done translation work elsewhere, and since they’re selling to enterprise, I don’t think they can afford to be phoney. Maybe we can get them to do another demo on video at some point.