VIDEO: The Japanese may have invented the first universal translator
Dan Seitz It’s the lamest hand-wave in Star Trek: all the aliens speak English because of the “universal translator”, a gizmo that we never see, never malfunctions, and never causes hilarious misunderstandings that result in an ensign being molested. But leave it to the Japanese to actually invent it in our lifetimes; Japanese cellphone giant NTT DoCoMo has put one together, and unlike Babelfish? It actually works.
It’s not absolutely perfect, mind you; even NTT claims it only works about 80 to 90 percent of the time, and the English translation is still a little rough. But most voice translators are, at best, 50/50, which is where we get all those hilarious Engrish signs from, and more to the point, it’s a streaming translator: that is, it can literally translate your call into Japanese (or English) as you talk and still be fairly accurate. The results…well…they speak for themselves:
Yep, that’s two guys who don’t speak each other’s language having an actual, if basic, conversation.
Needless to say, businesses are already salivating over the idea of a cell phone that lets them call anybody in the world and actually communicate somewhat clearly (manners are, of course, another matter entirely). And the technology is far from perfect; NTT is still testing it out.
Still, imagine a world where you can prank call anybody and have them understand exactly what you’re saying. That’s a world we want to live in. Now, science, get work on phasers; we want to speed up our commute.
NTT DoCoMo Shows Real Time Japanese/English Translation for Mobile Phones [TechCrunch]
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