Google Smartphones To Translate Live

Franz Och, head of Google's Translation Services and Chair of the Hilarious Names Committee, said recently that Google is working on improving speech recognition software so that live translation can occur language to language. Imagine calling a friend who only speaks Swedish and being able to communicate with them as if they were speaking to you in perfect English. Important to note, as PhysOrg says, "Google's system would analyze speech in the same way as a human interpreter, listening to a package of speech to gather the full meaning before it attempts to translate. It will improve in accuracy the more it is used." Google expects to release this function after a few more years of research.

The implications of this are huge. Economic dominance has forced certain languages to become more prevalent on a global scale. This type of technology would preserve languages as they are, allowing families and regions to have their own dialects and colloquialisms. For right now, I think, as posted below, it is direly important that Americans join the bi- and trilingual groups that are populating the world, and learn a few languages.

East Meets West: Will Americans Learn Chinese?

Yesterday, the New York Times tackled the aforementioned question in their Room For Debate blog. Essentially, the shrinking (or flatening) of the world is bringing the Far East closer and closer to the West. If you name one company that does all of its manufacturing in the United States, I'll name 5 that do all of their manufacturing abroad. Communication is increasing exponentially as an effect of symbiotic relationships between global companies in both the East and West. Many fear without the ability to communicate globally in a number of languages they will be left in the dust.

Check out the expert opinions after the break.