Microsoft's Real-Time Skype Translator To Be Available Before 2015
Microsoft is working on a move that may just put translators out of business. The Skype Translator, a real time language translator was unveiled by Microsoft two years ago but it was deemed too inaccurate for public use. Now the Skype and Microsoft Translator teams have combined to produce its improved version that reduced the speech recognition errors by more than 30% by using neural networks. Thus, people who couldn't understand each other may now be able to communicate seamlessly. Microsoft demoed a conversation with real-time audio translation between and English and German speakers using Skype Translator. This translator converted the foreign language into subtitles for the other person, and then the subs were spoken aloud by a chosen voice. Skype Translator first will be available as a Windows 8 beta app before the end of 2014.
The announcement came at the début Code Conference at Ranchos Palos Verdes, Calif. where Microsoft demonstrated the Skype Translator publicly. Skype has more than 300 million connected users each month, and more than 2 billion minutes of conversation a day. The availability of Skype Translator is sure to add more to these impressive statistics. It seems Microsoft is actively trying to delve further in the speech recognition and real-time translation area, same as its rivals Google and Apple are doing. These IT giants now focus on Deep Neural Network models rather than the Gaussian Mixture Models. The GMMs were rampant for the speech recognition models before 2009 but their results could only be termed as "disappointment". However, tremendous advancement in the field of DNNs have only boosted the areas of voice search, real-time translation and now, real-time cross-lingual conversation.
Microsoft certainly has had a breakthrough with this technology and now has definitely an edge over its opponents, especially Apple. With this development, Microsoft may be able to compensate the shortcomings from its voice-based search assistant- Cortana, as compared to Apple's Siri. The full story behind Skype Translator can be found #-Link-Snipped-#. The major developments leading to the Skype Translator can be found #-Link-Snipped-#.
The Universal Translator from the Star Trek series that seemed quite impossible a few years ago, doesn't seem like a distant dream now.
Source: #-Link-Snipped-#
