IBM's speech recognition technology headed for trial use in Iraq

Being frequent users of machine translation ourselves, we're fully aware of the difficulties present in its execution, but IBM seems to think they've got it worked out well enough for some real-life use in Iraq. Their "Multilingual Automatic Speech-to-Speech Translator," AKA Mastor combines speech recognition, machine translation, and text-to-speech technologies to create a common translation engine that is apparently independent of languages. The system develops translation patterns off of regular conversational use of the languages, and is purportedly as speedy as a human translator -- and provides a text read-out of the conversation to boot. DARPA has had similar tech in the works for a while, but now IBM's Mastor is apparently ready enough for actual use, since they're shipping 35 Mastor-equipped ruggedized laptops to Iraq as a trial run, and will consider even more depending on how these work out. So far Mastor works for translation between English and Iraqi Arabic, standard Arabic or Mandarin. The system can run on a laptop or PDA, and should be making its way to commercial channels such as medicine before long.

[DC MIke @ Oct 13th 2006 6:42PM]

It funny how the article talks about Irag language and from the picture is Mandarin Chinese, which is a very difficult language to learn.

Ipod slave worker compound.

[QUOW @ Oct 13th 2006 6:56PM]

"You don't need to see his identification."

[Dallas @ Oct 13th 2006 7:01PM]

Let see how this translation technology differs from the current:

English: "We need access to your country to help capture Bin Laden"

Pakistani translation: " We will bomb your country to the stone age if you do not do as we say"

[Stephen Yuan @ Oct 14th 2006 1:45PM]

Obviously the translator, which is the chief of security, that the PM of Pakistainee was using wasn't working properly. We should ask him to change it to another brand. What do you guys think?

[Jean-Michel Decombe @ Oct 13th 2006 7:08PM]

Pray God that one of the programmers doesn't put some kind of "inappropriate" Easter egg in the software. Doesn't look very sincere when you smile and ask a guy to "please step over there, you f* iraqi douche bag, and show me some f* ID riiight nowww..."

[Igor Jablokov @ Oct 13th 2006 8:34PM]

Actually, we did play around and add easter eggs for different utterances; we were foiled by some of our more uptight colleagues. ;-)

[Jean-Michel Decombe @ Oct 13th 2006 7:09PM]

LOL Quow

[Jean-Michel Decombe @ Oct 13th 2006 11:04PM]

Awww, too bad some people don't have a (dangerous, admittedly) sense of humor. Nice try, anyway. I hope you guys will make that technology available to the general public soon.

[josiah @ Oct 13th 2006 9:38PM]

Alright, so an A+ for cool/functional software, but definitely a C for UI design.

Blech!

Only looks somewhat usable, and definitely not aesthetically pleasing.

My inflation-affected two cents.

-josiah

[Igor Jablokov @ Oct 13th 2006 11:11PM]

We didn't have time nor pay IBM Research types to work on candy coated shells. Still averages out to a B, which is respectable. :-)

[Reginald @ Oct 13th 2006 11:38PM]

Durka Durka!

[Keija @ Oct 14th 2006 6:07AM]

hi,

i have seen this technology beeing displayed at the Cebit 2 or 3 years ago and it seemed to work really well! it was impressively displayed by a chinese and a british person and both confirmed that it worked almost perfect.

it seemed to do the "saying" job very well.

[OASIS @ Oct 14th 2006 10:53AM]

Hi... this is 1st time I have heard that there's ARABIC language for Iraqi (or for Iraq) I though it's only one language for all arabian countries (from Iraq to Mauritania) It's Arabic (there is no Arabic for Iraq or Kuwait or UAE ....).
Anyway I think (and Iam Sure ) It's only for political usage .

[GG @ Oct 14th 2006 12:13PM]

@OASIS

One word, three syllables...DI-A-LECT. See, that was easy!

[Ari @ Oct 15th 2006 11:04AM]

I got to see this technology during a tour of the IBM lab where it was being developed. It is currently being deveopled in English-Chinse and English-Arabic, but there are plans to expand it to many other languages. IBM has a military grant for this project, hence Arabic.

The software seems nothing short of brilliant. I spoke into the microphone, "I have two dogs", and the screen read "I have 2 dogs" before translating into Chinese. "I have to go now" became "I have_to go now".

The IBM developer whom I spoke to said that they hope to be able to use this technology in hospitals so as to treat patients who don't speak any English.