Google Conversation Mode turns Android phones into speech translators, but background noise, accents and fast talk still expose the limits of machine interpreting.
Posts with tag.: language barrier
Google prototype Conversation Mode records speech on Android and plays it back in another language, promising travellers real time translation that still depends on battery and signal.
Wikipedia marks its tenth birthday by opening its first office outside the United States in India, betting that growth now depends on local language editions rather than English.
Research reveals that some indigenous languages lack terminology to describe climate change (Kenya).
Africa Talks Climate found that many indigenous languages have no words for the science of climate change, leaving warnings unintelligible to the people most at risk.
Emergency patients given a professional interpreter were four times as likely to report satisfaction, and the Annals of Emergency Medicine study points to safety gains too.
Arabic web users grew 2,000% and Chinese is overtaking English online. How Google Translate and human projects like Meedan are keeping the web readable.
Camera translation, offline packs and voice mode have removed the everyday friction of a foreign city, but they still cannot sign a consent form.