Comments on: More of a Babel facehugger than a Babel fish

More of a Babel facehugger than a Babel fish

imperium — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 02:01:54 -0800

Carnegie Mellon offer the prospect of a real-time automatic face-mounted translation device.

By: imperium

imperium — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 02:14:19 -0800

And the BBC get the reference completely wrong. Oh well.

By: blacklite

blacklite — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 02:20:07 -0800

Bien, ils ont essayé...

By: Phanx

Phanx — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 02:54:25 -0800

It sounds interesting, but I should have thought a more immediate application for this technology was allowing call centre workers and the like to work without wearing their own voices out. Really good quality, instant translation involves other formidable challenges which this doesn't seem to bear on.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 02:55:47 -0800

heh heh, BBC's Tower of Babel: pretty funny! And that picture they included: those 2 guys are obviously both Italian, so what do they need with this Tower of Babel?

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 03:37:01 -0800

I whisper "Cheese-powered bung-coring replacement therapy cocoa puffs," the machine says "I fucking quit."

By: jeffburdges

jeffburdges — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 04:47:02 -0800

En fait, je pense que la meilleure idée est un écouteur qui traduire d'autres personnes. Ce n'est pas difficile de parler d'autre lingua mal, mais l'écoute est tres difficile.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 05:11:42 -0800

Listening: cake, speaking: testicle pain.

By: pax digita

pax digita — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 05:12:18 -0800

I want a Babel fish in my ear in case I ever get to see Evegeniy Onegin or Boris Godunov...but it has to sing in reasonable facsimilies of the voices too. Old computer-translation joke: Machine's built to translate Chinese to idiomatic English & vice versa. They put in "out of sight, out of mind," get back a couple ideograms; put those in as input, get back "invisible schizophrenic."

By: itsjustanalias

itsjustanalias — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 06:24:40 -0800

And the Language Log has a bit of a snit fit at the reporting, basically saying that New Scientist has got a bit enthusiastic. But it'd be a bit cool wouldn't it...

By: Osmanthus

Osmanthus — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 06:55:57 -0800

I found out the hard way why the machine needs to actually say the words, not just print them on a screen. I took a machine translator to Greece so I could translate difficult words. I learned a dirty little secret: many many Greeks cannot read at all. I'm not talking about farmers, I'm talking about white collar workers. People who outwardly appear to be worldly and successful and who are multilingual in positions of authority. I was amazed.

By: zeoslap

zeoslap — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 06:56:23 -0800

Well the BBC didn't really get it completely wrong because the Babel Fish is called a Babel Fish because of the story of the Tower of Babel.

By: imperium

imperium — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 07:09:22 -0800

zeoslap, sure, of course that's where Adams got the word from, but they describe it as "a Tower of Babel device". Surely such a device would be designed to bring linguistic chaos, whereas a Babel Fish would solve same?

By: Opposite George

Opposite George — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 07:30:38 -0800

The system still has some way to go. Faced with a sequence of words it has never heard before, it picks the right phoneme sequence only 62 per cent of the time. Shaka, when the walls fell.

By: craven_morhead

craven_morhead — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 07:32:32 -0800

I like the term "face-mounted".

By: adipocere

adipocere — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 07:36:51 -0800

Maybe if I switch it to Russian and say, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak," it'll come out with "The meat is rotten but the vodka is good." Instead of face-mounting, can I have the option of holding it on a large black stick? Can it say "The Bene Gesserit witch must leave"?

By: rogue haggis landing

rogue haggis landing — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 08:14:39 -0800

Old computer-translation joke: Machine's built to translate Chinese to idiomatic English & vice versa. They put in "out of sight, out of mind," get back a couple ideograms; put those in as input, get back "invisible schizophrenic." Out of curiosity, I tried this with Google's Language Tools. Into Chinese and back I got Sight, out of mind. Italian gave me ,i>from sight, the mind. Korean came out as In the place which is not visible, from mind. Arabic came out with To be absent from the mind. And they obviously hate Microsoft in Iberia and Latin America, because Spanish generated outside Vista, the mind.

By: TedW

TedW — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 08:29:08 -0800

I will believe this technology is anywhere close to availability when they can get the close captioning on TV to work right 100% of the time; a much easier task but still beyond modern abilities

By: juliarothbort

juliarothbort — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 10:36:30 -0800

This reminds me of when the EU's translation device translated "pass the salt" as "pass the little white slut"

By: kid ichorous

kid ichorous — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 12:01:18 -0800

adipocere: Can it say "The Bene Gesserit witch must leave"? Beat me to it!

By: portisfreak

portisfreak — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 15:37:02 -0800

Allan's Stupid Predication #1: 2018: The Babel Fish is Invented

By: harlanpepper

harlanpepper — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 12:49:15 -0800

just a matter of time..