Article: This Startup Wants Translate Your Own Voice into Another Language that You Can’t Speak

The article I selected this week is interesting because I believe technology is going to begin to break down communication barriers. BabelOn, a startup company in California, is creating software will translate English into another language. Other software/translators are out there which provide similar services. However, what is different about BabelOn is the ability to recreate the statements in the same speech as the speaker. The intent is to personalize conversations over Skype, for movies, or other digital conversations and translate them. Other companies currently offer the translating but in a computer voice. The user needs to start by creating a scripted recording which can be hours long to set a baseline of sounds. The baseline is used to create the modeling for the voice over for all the sounds used in the translator. The company has eight languages the software can translate.

Currently, the software needs to receive a script and translate it, which can take hours. Eventually with hardware advancements the goal is to get the software to recognize the spoken work and translate it in real time. There are a number of security concerns as well regarding voice recognition and security. The company is working on safeguards to establish protocols to avoid any compromising of users voices.

I find this interesting for the sake of education where now a presentation digitally recorded can be translated and still harness the authentic voice of the instructor. The personalization of the actual voice of the individual providing the teaching makes for a more authentic and engaged learning experience.

Bavor, S. (2017, July 02). This Startup Wants Translate Your Own Voice into Another Language that You Can’t Speak. Retrieved July 02, 2017, from http://trendintech.com/2017/07/02/this-startup-wants-translate-your-own-voice-into-another-language-that-you-cant-speak/