Google developing real-time translation software for mobile phones

Search giant Google is developing mobile phone software that is capable of translating spoken foreign languages almost instantly, according to a new report.

The company is building on existing technologies in voice recognition and automatic translation, according to a report in the Times Online (UK). The company says it plans to have a basic system ready "within a couple of years."

With more than 6,000 languages spoken around the world, the software would mark the first time that people can make a mobile phone call and speak to someone in another country, both in their native language.

The project marries Google's automatic text translation system, which currently covers 52 languages, with the voice recognition system implemented on smartphones that use Google's Android operating system.

Together, the software is expected to understand a caller's voice and translate it on-the-fly. The software does not process exactly in real-time, however, since it must analyze groups of words to ensure proper context.

Accuracy has always been a hurdle for speech recognition and translation software, mostly because of the array of accents, pitches and slang spoken by native speakers.

The good news: thanks to Google's largesse, its software will be able to improve its accuracy as it is used around the world. Better still, the software will adapt to your own voice by nature of the fact that you will use it on your personal mobile phone.

Adaptation: an essential aspect, since living languages change so quickly.

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com