Microsoft [MSFT] research is working on a project that automatically translates languages by listening to a voice. The demo shown on video over at Giz shows a German researcher at Microsoft speaking in German with the software translating it to English and speaking with a voice.
As will be seen in the video, the translations are a little clunky, but still functional. The system is based around the Bing translation service, so you get almost what you’d get if you were to type the text in to a computer.
Uses for such a system could be to automatically translate conference calls for business, or perhaps translate for anyone wanting to communicate with someone in another language. If Microsoft were to embed this in to their Windows Phone software it could be a very handy feature should you need to talk to someone speaking a different language. Obviously there are a few more obstacles to clear before this could actually happen, but the video does give a glimpse of what could be a few years down the road in terms of translation services.
Google also have mentioned they are working on an auto voice translation system for their mobile phones, although this service is also several years away from being launched.
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