« Renaissance - Visual Pleasure
We Push Ice. It’s What We Do »

From the Pages of Cyberpunk to Your Mobile Phone

Note: Received clarification and what I took to be a translation software is actually just a phrase book.

Did you ever wish you could have a device like a pair of earclips that could be used for real-time translation? Well, that very device was used in Idoru, a book by William Gibson. While not exactly the same, a new technology in Japan is very near that idea. NEC has created an automatic speech translation program and CScout Japan saw a demo version on a mobile device. While the translation happens in real-time, it does take around 16 seconds for the process to complete.

It’ll only be a matter of time before the translation takes under five seconds and when that happens, who knows, it very well may be on earclips.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 at 7:37 pm and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “From the Pages of Cyberpunk to Your Mobile Phone”

  1. Made in DNA says:

    I have lived in Japan for a decade and I can tell you, this is NOT a translation device, but simply a device that spits out PRESET phrases like a dictionary. Even if the Japanese could create such a device, the Japanese and English languags are so different structurally that it would be nigh impossible to get a good translation.

    December 22, 2007 at 11:29 pm
  2. Arlan says:

    Ahh, thank you for the clarification. Guess we still have quite a ways to go for such technology.

    December 22, 2007 at 11:51 pm
  3. Made in DNA says:

    Hey Arlan! I’m new to your blog and I must say, I dig it. No worries, jeez, it’s not like you could have known that. Sorry if I came off as being a prig. Didn’t mean to.

    In my opinion, machines should never be trusted to translation as they don’t have the heart for it (yet). However the Japanese love to try and cheat out of speaking other languages if they could have a machine do it for them. May the gods bless them for trying. Maybe one day they will succeed. ;)

    In the end though, anything worth doing, is worth doing yourself.

    December 23, 2007 at 2:08 am
  4. Arlan says:

    It’s nice to meet you and I didn’t think you were! I’ll be sure to check out your sites as it seems we have similar interests.

    I’ve been fascinated by the trends (both general and technological) coming from Japan and have also started to get serious about visiting there as I’ve never been.

    Thank you for visiting and commenting! “No fear, just say ‘um!” :)

    December 23, 2007 at 11:53 am

Post a Comment