Microsoft’s Skype Translator to translate voice calls in
real time
Microsoft’s Skype is one of the most popular services for
voice and video calls over the internet and the service has been continuously
improving on features. Microsoft has now showcased a new feature of Skype which
will eventually be able to translate voice calls between people. The Skype
Translator, as it is known, was shown in an on-stage demo at the Code
conference by Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella. Using this new feature, Skype is capable of translating voice conversation
in “near real-time” using technology developed by the company’s Skype and
Translator teams.
So this means, if you are using Skype and you can talk in
your native language to another user who speaks a different language, the
translator will be able to translate it in real time.
The demo showed near real-time audio translation from
English to German and vice versa, combining Skype voice and IM technologies
with Microsoft Translator, and neural network-based speech recognition.
Skype Translator first will be available as a Windows 8 beta
app before the end of 2014 and probably expand to other devices later on. We
are not sure on the pricing of this service and most probably this will not a
free service.