On The Road To A Universal Translator

[Trekmachine 0]

The LAPD Phraselator isn't quite the Universal Translator of Star Trek, but it's a step on the path towards development of one.

 

As reported in the L.A. Times, sometimes communication can be an issue in a city where two hundred and twenty-four languages are spoken. Not being able to communicate properly can lead to problems, such as happened in Los Angeles last May when a disturbance based on communication difficulties caused a melee which lead to injuries.

 

The Phraselator, a somewhat clunky hand-held device, enables officers to translate and broadcast thousands of prerecorded phrases in many languages. Developed for use in Afghanistan and Iraq by American soldiers who used it to communicate in Farsi and other local languages, it has proved to be a lifesaver in Los Angeles, aiding in situations where communication in other languages is needed.

 

"It is not quite like that translator thing on 'Star Trek'," said LA police Captain Dennis Kato. "It's a step or two away. But when it comes to crowd control, natural disasters or medical emergencies, it can be a lifesaver."

 

The Phraselator isn't a complete solution to communication difficulties. It can only be used in one-way translation. It can give phrases in another language, but it can't decipher responses. But the Phraselator has its uses, being used in places that are dangerous for human translators, such as being in the line of fire in a war.

 

 

 

http://www.trektoday.com/news/170108_03.shtml

[trekz 7]

The phraselator sounds like a promising, if just first step toward a truly successful translator of different languages. I'd like to read, and hear, more about it

[trekz 7]

From wikipedia:

 

The Phraselator is a small PDA-sized device designed to aid in interpretation. The device does not produce synthesized speech like that utilized by Stephen Hawking; instead, it plays pre-recorded foreign language MP3 files. Users can select the phrase they wish to convey from an English list on the screen or speak into the device. It then uses speech recognition technology called DynaSpeak, developed by SRI International, to play the proper sound file. The accuracy of the speech recognition software is over 70 percent according to software developer Jack Buchanan. The device can also record replies for translation later.

 

Pre-recorded phrases are stored on Secure Digital flash memory cards. A 128 MB card can hold up to 12,000 phrases in 4 or 5 languages. Users can download phrase modules from the official website, which contained over 300,000 phrases as of March 2005. Users can also construct their own custom phrase modules.

 

Earlier devices were known to have run on a SA-1110 Strong Arm 206 MHz CPU with 32MB SDRAM and 32MB onboard Flash RAM.

 

A newer model, the P2, was released in 2004 and developed according to feedback from U.S. soldiers. It translates one way from English to approximately 60 other languages. It has a directional microphone, a larger library of phrases and a longer battery life.

 

In the future, the device will be able to display of pictures so users can ask questions such as "Have you seen this person?"

 

Developer Ace Sarich notes that the device is inferior to human interrogators.

 

Origin

The original idea for the device came from Lee Morin, a Navy doctor in Operation Desert Storm. In order to communicate with patients, he would play Arabic audio files from his laptop. He informed Ace Sarich, the vice president of VoxTec, about the idea. VoxTec won a DARPA Small Business Innovation Research grant in early 2001 to develop a military-grade handheld phrase translator.

 

The device was first field tested in Afghanistan in 2001.

 

SRI International has further developed two-way translation software for use in Iraq called IraqComm which contains a vocabulary of 40,000 English words and 50,000 words in Iraqi Arabic.

 

Notable users

The handheld translator was recently used by U.S. troops while providing relief to tsunami victims in early 2005. About 500 prototypes of the device were provided to U.S. military forces in Operation Enduring Freedom. Units loaded with Haitan dialects have been provided to U.S. troops in Haiti. Army military police have used it in Kandahar to communicate with POWs. In late 2004, the U.S. Navy began to augment some ships with a version of the device attached to large speakers in order to broadcast clear voice instructions up to 400 yards away. Corrections officers and law enforcement in Oneida County, New York have tested the device. Hospital emergency rooms and health departments have also evaluated it. Several Native American tribes such as the Choctaw Nation, the Ponca, and the Comanche Nation have also used the device in order to preserve their dying languages.

 

Awards

In March of 2004, DARPA director Dr. Tony Tether presented the Small Business Innovative Research Award to the VoxTec division of Marine Acoustics at DARPATech 2004 in Anaheim, CA.[7]. The device was recently listed as one of "Ten Emerging Technologies That Will Change Your World" in MIT's Technology Review.

 

Pop culture

Software developer Jack Buchanan believes that building a device similar to the fictional universal translator seen in Star Trek would be harder than building the Enterprise.

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A universal translator developed by a guy named "Ace?"