h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You could try the translator at http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com (I kid you not) but try translating something to french and back to english - it's abysmal.

I translated "Hello, I would like a cup of Earl Grey and a slice of lemon, please" into french and back and got "Hello, of me would like a cup earl gray and a lemon share please" - close, but no cigar.

yup, but has anybody linked that with a voice synthesizer, a speech recognition package, and a PDA yet? Perhaps I should try it.

Ah. You're right. No cigar at all. Didn't mention a single one.

*Wonders if the H2G2 On The Move could handle it better if programmed well enough*

So now we know what they use to translate the instuction for video machines from Taiwan.

I believe the test of acceptance or failure of new technology is how user-friendly it turns out to be.

I presume people, somewhere, are working on a WAP-type phone that can be voice-activated - as opposed to typing on fiddly-little buttons - to send messages to media like h2g2.

I reckon that technological devices are good at some things, but not others. Translating is not one of them. Pretending to be human isn't either, but on the other hand, programs for both of these are getting better (what did Darwin call his theory agaon?) - as was shown on TW's livelab this year. But technological translators will never be perfect - because languages constantly change, with new phrases being brought in. A five year old translator may have trouble with the phrases "No **** sherlock" or "The Third Way" or "Blairism". On the other hand, h2g2 is supposed to be good at being up to date. We shall see.

I'm sure phones with voice dialling are already available, and voice recognition software is definitely around (although not always 100% reliable... in fact, not always 10% reliable), so I'd be very surprised if there isn't a secret workshop somewhere in which the two are being metaphorically welded together.

Ah, but who operates the translaters? That's important too.

Kinda like Dirk Gentley's calculater in "The Long, Dark, Tea-Time Of The Soul".

Kid ye not - certain universities in this country (in the Admin Departments, admittedly) do use Babelfish to translate documents

Heh. I suppose the Korean company that made the breadknife that said "Keep out of children" (I kid ye not) used it too?

I don't see why the universities should use them unless they are testing out the ones they wrote. Not until babelfish works.

PrAK's response to DNA's essay...

Don't wish to offend, but...

in response to each paragraph

1, the people who wield the power won't like it...
2, the people who wield the power won't like it...
3, the people who wield the power have a lot of highly overpaid guys who make them appeal to the average american, and they definately don't like people thinking for themselves...
4, the people who wield the power are trying to take away the average person's right to freedom of speech, right to complain and rights to protest.

How do you see the individual overcoming initiatives to censor and surpress?

The most recent issue of Wired has a very massive article on language translation. And they, despite being paid massive amounts of money, still have much the same opinion; the current technology just isn't good enough. They use the example of something rendered from Chinese into English by a million-dollar machine, which reads:
"Modern guided missle already possible carry with war head of hydrogen bomb and atomic bomb. Therefore it is one kind weapon with very big power of destruction."
The emulation community has a name for this: SNK-glish, because of that company's frequent contributions to the realm of poor translation. An interesting note to this same article is that their projected timeline for translation includes:
"2058- The Reformed Rifkin Institute (RRI) is rewarded a patent for its invention of a symbio-parasite that feeds on the electrical impulses in the speech center of the human brain, then excretes a translated signal that can be understood by anyone who inserts the creature in their ear." Sound familiar?

I have a slight fear of voice-controlled devices. It's bad enough coping with a roomful of discordant mobile phones calling to their owners at random intervals; imagine a trainful of people trying to v-mail their co-workers, friends, bosses or significant others...

As a communication professional I know that the poetential exsists to have everything fast and wireless. New technology is coming that will help this revolution. DNA is right however, we are at a very early stage in this revolution. As little as ten years ago it would have been impossible for private companies to have as much bandwidth available to them as is now common. Internet pipes have grown to amazing sizes. Here in the States many people are able to take atvantage of high speed connections that are four and five times faster than what previously was common for large buisnesses. The next step will be users of devices like WAP phones demanding better performance out of their service providers. This lowers cost and increases performance. DSL lines at 256K were not common two years ago. Now thousands of people in my state alone are getting that performance. I was amazed at the speed on the very first T1 line I ever saw, now I feel like net responce is slow at those speeds. I have almost half T1 performance at my home. I belive that soon these WAP devices will see some speed increases. If the future of internetworking goes as fast os the last ten years we will be holding the Guide in our hands.

Marv

Hi DNA - I dont know if you are still on line or will be coming back, but from a man who has many dreams, it is nice to see someones dream on the edge of reality. Following with interest.
vegiman

As long as new technology helps people really communicate, it will make life easier. Otherwise, it will just be a source of endless pestering, creating more junk that you do not want to read, or hear (or be told to do by some machine). You can already see the world of email and mobile phone abuse has created a world of noise - with super market shoppers having to make a couple of calls to ask someone what they were supposed to remember to buy, or just to look "cool" or important, etc. Worse, people fire off emails with far less thinking than composing a letter - Making crass comments, mindless remarks sometimes and often hiding from actually talking or negotiating behind a "firewall" of email replies.

Getting junk out the way that you really want to get out of the way without involving a team of bureaucrats - say getting your driving licence, paying bills, etc. is ideal for this sort of traffic. But it is no replacement for personal communication in business or pleasure. I wonder how many business transactions have been ruined by overuse of email etc. in place of actually picking up a phone - or picking up your phone to send an email - How many friendships have been strained?

The internet has dramatically changed the way people can manage their lives, what they have to manage and their basic priorities are hopefully the same as always.

Being able to call someone at all times and talk to them is great - But at times it is a good idea to turn the thing off and go and look at some trees, or lie on your back in a field at the middle of the night looking at the stars and wondering what it is like to hitchhike around the galaxy - etc.

The rate at which words and phrases are added to say the English language is not far off from the rate at which some languages are being decimated by, amongst other factors, the spreading hi-tech communication, and the conformance restrictions it places on people wishing to use the technology.

The dilemma, from my humble, ill-informed perspective, is how do we get people to communicate, without taxing their language, culture etc.?

I rather like where everything is headed- it excites me quite a bit. Some of the things that we can accomplish are just mind boggling... I'm sure that we all realize this. HTML, java, ASCII, Flash, GHTML, DHTML, C, C+, C++, etc. etc. are all just pushing the fields further with everybody and their uncle trying to stretch what is possible in attempts to expand the global community. It is all very awe-inspiring, and I think the sooner the better when it comes to new technology.

I've heard so much about the WAP technology, but all of that information has been from this site. I've yet to encounter it locally... is WAP service even available outside the UK?

Sooner than you'd think...

If you have a US-based internet enabled phone, check out the "Translate" option on h2g2 On the Move!