From the always interesting, new automated translation technology front comes this release…

NEC invents translation phone
JAPANESE electronics giant NEC has created a world-first real-time translator on a mobile phone, which can instantly turn Japanese travellers words into English.

One second after the phone hears speech in Japanese, the mobile phone shows the text on the screen. One second later, an English version appears.

NEC said it was the first time in the world that automatic translation is available on a mobile phone without external help.

The company made it possible by making the software, which includes a voice-recognition system and translation functions, compact enough to operate on a small microchip mounted in a cellphone, it said.

The software, which can recognise some 50,000 Japanese words, is especially designed for smooth translation of travel phrases such as “Can I have a subway route map?”.

Why do I find this so interesting? And I know that when I paste the above phrase into Bablefish and translate to French and back to English I come up with, “Does edge I cut has subway road map?” I can’t help but think that as technology stands today, this phone will probably get a tourist slapped in the face before it gets you to your final destination.

While I’ve bloged on this before, here’s a story of a school actually using an online translation service to serve it’s Spanish speaking community. While I think it’s great that they are making efforts for outreach to Spanish speakers, I can’t help but wonder what I would think if I received a poor computer translated note from my teacher. Then again, maybe it’s good enough in a community with limited language resources and we all know that schools are lacking time and money… I just wonder if this is helping or continuing to perpetuate a gap between communities. Read more.

If Rosa needs a sack lunch and closed toe shoes for a field trip, the IBM software Traducelo Ahora! (Translate Now!) will take the teacher’s English note and translate it into Spanish.

If Rosa’s parents need to schedule a parent-teacher conference, they can write an e-mail in Spanish and the IBM translation software will convert it into English for Rosa’s teacher.

The Rogers School District recently received a grant for the IBM translation software access, which is worth about $20,000 per year, said Tricia Todd, director of the school district’s English for Speakers of Other Languages and migrant education programs.

“We hope this translation service will help us keep more families informed and involved in their children’s education,” said Rogers Superintendent Janie Darr.

There are few things more powerful than a parent who is engaged with their children’s education. With this in mind, IBM seems to be reaching out to Spanish speaking communities to help them access information that has been difficult in the past. While I’m not clear on the value of another web-based automatic translation tool, anything that is done to bridge language barriers and to improve eduction is important.   Read more.

Spanish is the primary language spoken in Isabel Perezs home.

“Because I don’t speak English that well, it’s difficult to help my children with their homework. Sometimes I don’t understand it,” said Isabel Perez.

Today, Perez can use new translation software.

IBM showed it off at a technology fair, held at San Joses Herman Intermediate School. The fair was aimed at getting Hispanic students excited about science and technology.

The free software is currently available only to schools and nonprofit organizations through an IBM grant.

It translates entire websites and even email from English to Spanish and vise-versa within seconds.

“We currently have three grant sites locally, and hopefully plan to get it implemented into Herman next year, once we complete the donations with their computer lab,” said Jennifer Hernandez from IBM Corp.

“This technology will allow me to communicate with my kids teachers, check on their progress and make sure their homework is complete,” said Perez.

“Our main goal is to get more parents involved in the students education,” said Lourdes Esparza from San Jose Unified School District.

How about trying to search for a subject across multiple languages? Google is trying out a new tools that does just this. It allows people to find results on websites in languages other than their primary native languages. What if I want to find out about “resort towns in Spain”? Google will then automatically translation my search term, scour the internet for websites in Spanish, and then give me the original and the translated results of my search. Or if you don’t speak English, you can search in your native language for “restaurante de los mariscos de Chicago” and it will tell you go check out Catch 35 - an excellent restaurant. Check it out.

Of course we need to forgive it for it’s machine based and imperfect translations. However, it’s a potentially useful and interesting tool.

Now I’m not a cat person, and this post isn’t exactly about a professional translation device, but if you need to know what your cat is saying to you, this is for you. You hold this cute device next to your cat as it meows. The palm-sized gadget will then interpret what your cats meows and purrs really mean.

The problem with this device is that it may crush our lucrative cat interpretation business. I’m really upset about this. I mean, as a business owner, how can we compete with these cute pink hand-held devices? Read more.

The hand-held Meowlingual device is shaped like a cat, with stylish design lines and a compact size designed to fit easily in the palm of a hand… The Meowlingual has the microphone built into the handheld unit. The cat owner uses Meowlingual to, in effect, “interview” his or her feline companion from close range.

Meow Translation: The Translation function analyzes your cat’s meows to determine which of six emotions it is feeling. Meowlingual then provides a phrase matched to the emotion.

The six emotions and some sample phrases:

• Happy: I can’t keep my happiness bottled up!!!
• Angry or Afraid: You better watch it, I fight like a tiger!
• Needy: like it when you scratch my neck (hint hint).
• Satisfied: That’s Purrrrfect!
• Assertive/Showing Off: Hey, a little attention here please!
• Amorous: Can you introduce me to a nice kitty-cat?

And while we’re at it, I just came across this Cat Translation Dictionary which could come in handy for some…

miaowbu	Feed me.
meeow	Pet me.
mrooww	I love you

…It goes on from there. Click here for more of this handy dictionary.

The summary of this recent study is this - global companies aren’t investing enough in communicating across language divides. This means communication errors from poor translations, language miscues or non-standardized use of terminology in the workplace. Read more.

Failure to pay attention to global communication in the form of local language and consistent terminology is hampering growth in all sizes of business. 

A study carried out by the Localisation Industry Standards Association and global information management provider SDL, which is best known for its translation and terminology management software, found that global business growth is hindered because decision makers have little knowledge of core technology such as content management, terminology management, and budgets associated with global communications.

Terminology management refers to the process of defining the important terms and phrases used within a company. It covers aspects such as how these are used in context, how they are written, and how they are translated so that they mean the same thing in multiple languages.

Even though respondents were aware of the importance of terminology management in driving brand consistency and aiding customer loyalty, few had implemented processes or software to manage it. 56% said the greatest benefit of terminology management would be consistant management of a global brand, while 32% identified the ability to deliver the right global content to the right people at the same time as its key focus.

The summary at the end of this article says it all, “machine translation has a long way to go in the accuracy realm”. Give it a try here. And the article is here.

Microsoft has launched a new translation service intended to complement Windows Live Search. Although the automatic translation service is currently on a separate page, it would appear that Microsoft intends to integrate Translator into the main Live Search page at some point. Such a move would bring Live Search up to speed with the other major search players, which already offer some form of translation service.

…As we’ve mentioned when we looked at other services, like those from Google, machine translation has a long way to go in the accuracy realm, but it’s not a bad way to get the overall gist of a document and Windows Live Translator’s side by side comparison features nicely compliment this approach.

But for fun I’ve decided to try to try some translations on our own. How about some Shakespeare, from English to Spanish and back to English again. The original was changed to…

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet

-became-

A rose by any other name would smell like candy

and

To be or not to be, –that is the question

-became-

To be or not to be, –that one is the question

and

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears

-became-

The friendly, Romans, countrymen, lend their ears to me

Nothing major, but these are simple, single sentence translations. Now try this with your HR policy.

Let’s file this under the, “James Bond Tech” file. I highly doubt that a hand held technology will replace translators / interpretors in the near future, but it’s clear that technology is getting better in limited applications. I believe that in specific targeted areas where you need very limited command based language, technology can play an important role, but humans are still the most important part of any communication plan - no matter which language you are talking. More.

Under the Small Business Innovative Research Phase III indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract, the Navy will purchase an unspecified number of Voxtec’s Phraselator P2 hand-held device, which facilitates accurate communication in different languages without a human translator. More than 5,000 units are being used by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The contract also covers future research, development and refinement of the Phraselator’s phrase-based language technology, the company said.

The Navy will also be able to purchase future low-production prototypes from the Annapolis, Md., company in addition to the commercial devices currently in use.

I find this interesting… Google is one of the leaders in online translation… but they are looking for real live translators for their products. Why don’t they just plug it into their Google translation pages. Plug in the English and out comes Zulu, Spanish, Abhazian…Read more…

Vlad Patryshev, a software engineer, revealed on the Official Google Blog that “[m]any Google products . . . currently support more than 170 languages, from Abhazian to Zulu.” And of that impressive amount, “Translations into most of these languages are done by volunteers from around the world who are eager to help people view and search the web in their own native language.”

Patryshev was also quick to point out that these volunteers haven’t signed their lives away; “it usually takes weeks for an individual volunteer to finish translating one site,” he wrote. So if you’ve got the ability, some spare time, and an interest in aiding Google, the company’s new Google in Your Language page may be worth a look; it outlines some of the guidelines and FAQs with which translators should become acquainted, and provides a relatively quick way to get started.

The video game industry is waking up to the multi billion dollar Hispanic market. The ever popular video game football franchise Madden ‘08 is marketing to Latinos by releasing a Spanish translation of their game. Read more.

Madden sells a lot of copies, but it could always sell more. Which is why EA are, if Amazon and GameStop are to be believed, about to release a Spanish-language version of Madden for the US market. Called Madden NFL 08 en Español, it would be the first major game (at least that I know of) to target the Spanish-speaking population of the United States, and looks due on November 13. There are only listings for a PS2 and 360 version, which would make sense, this being a risky venture (November’s pretty late, so bilingual Hispanics may well have opted for the English version by then).