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Microsoft Aims To Offer Virtual Instant Translator. Replacing Human Element?
Tech giant Microsoft is slowing moving towards replacing professional translators with an autonomous & smart virtual option.
Aiming to mimic the translation capabilities of a ‘human brain’, the translator is supposedly capable of instantly translating spoken words. Interestingly, the human persona is carefully retained as the software attempts to understand & bring the intonation and cadence of the original speaker into the translation. In simple words, the software, once fully matured, will be able to not only translate words & sentences, but the ‘true’ meaning of them by understanding the variable pitch & inclination of the speaker.
How does this software ‘understand’? After experimenting with conventional ‘Pattern Matching’ which relied on correlating words & phrases with the one in the database, Microsoft realized, that’s not how humans communicate & respond. Hence the team moved on to more subtle & subconscious method of capturing the human vocal range. Using this, the company developed ‘Deep Neural Networks’ way back in 2010.
Matching the human way of speaking, the software has been able to significantly bring down error rate. But such a platform is sure to offer multiple benefits in many spheres. A while ago Vodafone had hired the blind to interact with their clients. These visually disabled personnel worked with voice actuated consoles. If such a platform is incorporated within these consoles, the accuracy & reliability of the same can be vastly improved. This is because, the software will be able to understand even more clearly the spoken language & the people will not have to ‘speak’ the computer’s language of abbreviated commands.
Additionally, using this translator, a single person could easily interface with clients speaking different language thereby eliminating the need to hire people with different linguistics training. Promising technologies like this are already in use in iPhone’s Siri. Additionally, with a little tweaking, it too can translate.
Though Microsoft has not given any definitive time-schedule to release this software with promising features, how soon do you think, we might be able to converse freely in foreign countries without needing a human companion?
Here’s a video which shows Microsoft’s Chief Research Officer giving a demonstration of this technology. Check it out.
Image Courtesy | scoop
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2012-11-12 07:38:00
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