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Topic: Telcos

VoxOx debuts Universal Translator in real-time for SMS, email and social media

Summary: VoxOx has a new program that makes the world just a bit smaller: a Universal Translator that translates in several dozen languages in real-time on your computer.

Rachel King

By for The ToyBox |

VoxOx has a new program that makes the world just a bit smaller: a Universal Translator that translates in several dozen languages in real-time on your computer.

The new VoxOx program instantly translates conversations over IM, SMS, email and social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, sending and receiving messages in your native language.

It's not known yet how accurate this real-time translation will be, granted that nothing is as 100% as someone telling you in person rather than using an online translator. But it could certainly prove to be useful, especially if you meet a special someone on a trip abroad and want to keep in touch, but don't really speak the same language. Other suggested uses include communicating with customer service centers in other languages and business partners.

The service is free and interested linguists can download it now, and works on both Windows (XP, Vista and 7) and Mac (at least OS X 10.5).

Unfortunately, it's only available in a desktop version for now, which is a bit strange considering it debuted at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week.

Topics: Telcos, Apple, Collaboration, Hardware, Mobility, Networking, Operating Systems, Software, Social Enterprise

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6 comments
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  • Garbage

    Even the best translation software working under ideal conditions with languages that are fairly similar such as Spanish to English is only about 70% accurate.

    Here's a simple test: Find a modern-language Bible translation in the source language and have the software translate a few passages into the target language. Use a passage that doesn't have a lot of names. (Just make sure it's a modern-language version, which is something usually stated.)
    Rick_R
    Reply Vote

    • the rest of the test...

      ...is that once it has translated it (or any other text) into the target language, have it translate it back into the original language and see how close it comes to the original input. You don't even need to understand the target language; just observe how goofy the result is.

      I've never see any program pass this test for anything but the simplest text, and often not even for that.

      A good translator will require a good AI natural language processor. (Statistical analysis can only take you so far. How can you translate something when you don't understand its actual meaning in the original language?) A good NLP doesn't exist.
      nfordzdn
      Reply Vote

  • RE: VoxOx debuts Universal Translator in real-time for SMS, email and social media

    Beam me up, Scotty!

    :)
    menomineenative
    Reply Vote

  • RE: VoxOx debuts Universal Translator in real-time for SMS, email and social media

    it looks and sounds good, but the only problem I see is that you can't have more than one account under, like msn. If they would have more than one instance available, at one time, this would really be an awesome program! Nice interface!
    Charles_B
    Reply Vote

  • RE: VoxOx debuts Universal Translator in real-time for SMS, email and social media

    With any language the sentence structure suffers unless you input it in the same structure they would. Only the simplest sentence come across properly.
    alanrsmith
    Reply Vote

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