Carnegie Mellon University and German scientists, looking to bring Douglas Adams’ Babelfish to life, demonstrated a prototype translation system which, through a series of electrodes in the cheek, neck, and throat, can detect spoken words and then translate them into another language on the fly.
CMU computer science graduate student Stan Jou, 34, of Shadyside, stood before the audience yesterday morning with 11 tiny electrodes affixed to the muscles of his cheeks, neck and throat.
The Taiwan native then mouthed — without speaking aloud — the following phrase in Mandarin Chinese: “Let me introduce our new prototype.”
The sensors captured electrical signals from Jou’s facial muscles when they moved to form the silent Chinese words. In a matter of seconds, this information traveled to a computer that recognized the words and translated them into English and Spanish. The phrase was then displayed on a screen and spoken by the computer in both languages.
The technology is still a ways off from being commercially available, but still, don’t put down those books kids. Learning langauges is wonderful for your brain, I promise.
Read the original article here: No longer lost in translation, by Jennifer Bails
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