Microsoft Translator smartphone / wearable pairing for conversation

by Mark Tyson on 18 December 2015, 12:31

Tags: Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)

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Microsoft has updated the Microsoft Translator app for iOS and Android to provide improved communications between folk speaking different languages. The updated tool is powered by the same technology behind Skype Translator and Office programs. Microsoft's latest innovation is to provide faster, more fluid communication by pairing a device with a wearable.

To see how the paired handheld device and wearable work, to facilitate multi-language real-time communications, you can watch Microsoft's promotional video above. In brief, a user runs the Microsoft translator app on both a smartphone and wearable then pairs them. Handing over the smartphone to the conversational partner, anything said into one's wearable gets translated into the target language on the smartphone display. The smartphone holder can read and respond in natural language which gets displayed in your language on the wearable device display (in the video example; a smartwatch).

Languages supported by the software include; English, Mandarin Chinese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Other than conversational use Microsoft Translator can be used to translate text, documents, webpages, and even restaurant menus and street signs. The tool can be used offline.

Microsoft says that it has also implemented this translation engine into Word Online plus the Word, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Publisher and Visio desktop apps.



HEXUS Forums :: 5 Comments

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…..Microsoft smart watch……
They havent releaced this for their own phones?????
WTF….
My question would be just how good the translation is? I haven't looked at translation software for a while, but last time I did, it was …. dubious …. to say the very least.

No doubt, sooner or later, it'll get there but my guesstimate is that it'll be some time yet, at least before it's good enough I'd feel comfortable relying on it, at least for anything more complicated than locating the nearest decent coffee shop.
Nytonial
They havent releaced this for their own phones?????
WTF….

Haha that's MS all over these days. All their own apps are far better on Android and iOS and in some cases like this they completely skip WP.
Wozza365
Nytonial
They havent releaced this for their own phones?????
WTF….

Haha that's MS all over these days. All their own apps are far better on Android and iOS and in some cases like this they completely skip WP.

Well duh, of course it's available on WP. Just remember that everything you read in the media isn't necessarily true, and to be fair to the author he didn't say it wasn't available he just failed to list WP as an available platform.