March 22, 2004
My Taylor is Rich: Translation cell phone
A groundbreaking cell phone developed by The Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR) that automatically translates the speaker's language from Japanese to English and vice versa could be on the market by 2007, reports Mainichi Daily News.
"With automatic speech translation, when Japanese is spoken into a microphone embedded in the cell phone, the sentences are translated into natural spoken English and transmitted to the person on the other end of the line in 10 seconds or less. Similarly when English is spoken, it is automatically translated into Japanese".
Major electronics firms have already put portable miniature translation devices on the market, but these have generally been limited to basic travel conversations. With the latest translation system, a level of daily conversation equivalent to a score of 600 in the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) is possible, with the addition of basic business conversation".
The Permanent Link to this page is: http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2004/03/003358.htm