Posts Tagged ‘translation’
Video: An Automatic Text-To-Sign-Language Translation System
Subtitles are all well and good, of course, but people who were born deaf and for whom signing is their primary form of communication may have more difficulty understanding them. NHK’s system, when presented with a string of Japanese text, automatically compares and converts it into sign language delivered by a snappily-dressed avatar in what appears to be a virtual newsroom. The system is also able to replace words that don’t directly translate with synonyms.
Deaf people who watched the animations were able to understand it at a basic level, senior research engineer Naoto Kato says in the video, but as a whole, the translation can lack fluency. As the system is still imperfect, it has a built in manual component where humans can adjust the translation to fix mistakes. Watch the system in action below.
Word Lens iPhone app combines instant text translation with augmented reality
Just when you thought you’ve seen everything mobile apps have to offer, along comes an entry like that makes you feel like you’re in the future. The app instantly translates Spanish into English (and vice versa) whenever you point your iPhone’s camera on text.
Translation apps aren’t anything new, but what’s amazing about Word Lens is that it translates text in real-time — there’s no need to take a photo and wait for the translation to process. Instead, the app offers an augmented reality (AR) experience by laying its translated text over a video feed from your iPhone’s camera.
This means that you can point your phone at a menu or sign in Spanish, and the app will instantly translate it into English text on your iPhone’s screen. The app also doesn’t require an internet connection to work, so you can use it even when you don’t have reception.
Word Lens is developed by , and the app itself is free. Inside the app, you pay $4.99 for translation dictionaries (only Spanish to English, and English to Spanish are available right now). The app doesn’t come bundled with any dictionaries, so it will effectively cost you $4.99 to start using it. With its in-app purchasing model, Word Lens could easily add support for other translation dictionaries.
Judging from the amount of buzz Word Lens is generating online this morning, I think Quest Visual has a hit on its hands. It’s also notable as a genuinely useful implementation of augmented reality, even more so than . Instead of being flooded with AR data, as many AR apps tend to do, Word Lens simply offers another way to view what’s directly in front of you.
You can view a demonstration of the app below to see just how innovative it is.
Companies: ,
Microsoft’s Engkoo Scans the Web to Teach Itself How to Teach You Languages
By drawing on the ever-evolving organism that is the Internet, Engkoo (loosely meaning “English vault” in Chinese) should be able to stay abreast of changes in colloquialisms and idioms in both the source language and the one it is translating to. In theory, it should also be able to catch errors or mistranslations easier, since an error is unlikely to be prevalent across the entire Web.
When a user searches for a word or sentence in either language – Microsoft plans to adapt the system for other languages but this initial phase is focused on Chinese-to-English translation – the software driving Engkoo searches through the database for the relevant data and draws upon statistics to translate as accurately as possible. Where possible it links to the sources where it drew the initial data from and often can provide example sentences for a word or phrase.
Engkoo is also a multimedia experience. Computer generated audio translations exist for many English words and sentences to help Chinese speakers with their pronunciation, and researchers are cultivating a video dictation library so users can see the way native speakers’ lips move as they enunciate.
Next up? Ultrasound images that show the movement of the tongue inside the mouth, a critical step in learning pronunciation but one that is often hidden from plain view. Researchers are already gathering ultrasound data for the library, but those of you who find that kind of imagery less-than-savory, worry not; the black-and-white ultrasounds will be converted into cartoon animation to make them a bit more – how do you say? – palatable.
There’s also a mobile app in the works that will run on Windows phones – other mobile OS types are being considered – that allows for translation on the go. Which means perhaps we’re seeing the first real baby steps toward the universal translator you can keep in your pocket for real-time translation of any language into your own.
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