Microsoft,
the software giant announced the skype translator feature in May 2014 and has
now come up with the preview of that service. It will be launched in two
languages i.e English and Spanish. Rigorous research in the fields of machine
learning technologies, automated translation, speech recognition and user
experience has led Microsoft to release the first phase of its translating
service. It will display online transcripts of the translation on both sides. It
will also translate instant messages in over 40 languages. Microsoft has been
looking to remove the language barriers in communication. This will help
flourish overseas business and bring along globalization in all nations.
How it Works
Inductive
learning is a process to convert the training data samples to software
learning. In skype, the machine learning is based on the better ability to recognize
and translate diverse accents, language and topics. Training data comes from various
sources like videos with subscripts and translated web pages.
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The
preprocessing of data includes removing fillers of speech (like ahhs, umms) and
also convert text to sentences by adding punctuation and capitalization. It has
to distinguish between homonyms too. Microsoft removed the high error rates by
including the Deep Neural Networks technology for speech recognition which it
pioneered. The machine learning software picks up words from its statistical
model to convert words to text format and then translate to a foreign language.
Microsoft
has produced a bot that creates a call and sends audio streams to speech
engines to receive back translation and transcription. The bot acts like a third person in the
communication.
Conclusion
Microsoft
really delivers a lot in terms of user experience. Its products adhere to the
quality standards. Skype translator is another venture into enhancing our
experience through its innovation. Hope the users really enjoy this product and
find it useful.
Sign-ups
have been made available since the first announcement and users of Windows 8.1
will benefit this feature in skype. So, start signing up with your own language
preference and Microsoft will soon release a preview in your language.
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