Universal Speech Translator App Ready for Olympics
From: New Scientist - 06/27/2012
By: Jacob Aron 

The 2012 Olympic Games in London will serve as the test bed for a new
smartphone application that will enable people to converse with others in
their own language. The Universal Speech Translation Advanced Research
Consortium developed VoiceTra4U-M, a speech translation app for the iPhone
that supports full voice translation for 13 different languages, with text
translation for an additional 10 languages. The app enables the user to speak
face-to-face with another person using a single iPhone or make phone calls to
anyone else. The translation takes place on remote servers, which leads to a
slight delay during a conversation. The app runs on an open platform, which
enables any country to run its own server to provide translations for its
local language, and up to five people can converse at once, each in their own
language. Researchers from 23 countries are involved in the project and the
initial focus was on translating words and phrases related to tourism. The
app has up to 90 percent accuracy. VoiceTra4U-M will soon be available for
free from the App Store, and data gathered from users during the Olympics
will be used to improve it. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2012/06/universal-speech-translator-ap.html

Links:
Universal Speech Translation Advanced Research Consortium
http://www.ustar-consortium.com/

Press Release
http://www.ustar-consortium.com/pdf/Invitation_for_Press_Conference_on_27_June_2012_Application_will_be_by_20_June.pdf