Future Google phones could translate voice

Google is working on software that can translate voice into other languages on the fly, and hopes it'll be ready in a few years.

The software would combine two existing technologies, Times Online reports: Google Translate can currently translate Web sites and text into 52 languages, and voice recognition is used in Google Voice for voicemail transcription and Android phones for voice dialing, text messages and search.

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Google's automated translator would work like a human interpreter, listening to a small chunk of text, and then reading the translation back in a synthesized voice. The delay in playback is necessary so the translator can hear the entire sentence and interpret meaning, ensuring a proper translation. Unfortunately, it means you won't be able to have an instantaneous back-and-forth conversation.

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Franz Och, Google's head of translation services, told the Times that speech-to-speech translation needs roughly three more years to work "reasonably well." For now, Google has to work on the accuracy of both translation and transcription.

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Anyone who's used Google Translate and Google Voice knows the technology is far from perfect. Translating pages into English can result in broken phrases, and in some cases the translation is barely legible. As for transcription, one time someone left me a message that mentioned "Google Voice," and it was translated as "Global Voice." Whoops.

Och said the technology will naturally improve over time, because quality is fine-tuned when more data goes in. Also, mobile phones will become more effective over time because they can learn to recognize the user's own voice. Variation in accents, however, could make voice translation harder.

Either way, Google will need to use its existing services to prove that automated translation is viable. I use Google Translate now to get the gist of Web pages in other languages, but I wouldn't dare correspond with someone using the service, because I just don't trust it enough. Google has to win that trust from users before equipping its phones with a voice translator, even if the idea is great.

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