No longer lost in translation

2005-11-07

An increasingly globalized world became even smaller on Thursday when Carnegie Mellon University and German scientists unveiled technology that makes it possible to speak one language, yet be understood in another. Although this speech translation system is probably a decade away from commercial availability, it has the potential to topple the Tower of Babel by bridging the language divide between countries and cultures, said CMU computer science professor Alex Waibel, who directs the International Center for Advanced Communication Technologies, or interACT. "This is a bit science fiction, but it's clearly a vision we think is very exciting," Waibel said as he demonstrated a prototype of the translator during a videoconference viewed on the CMU campus in Oakland and at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany. Launched in 2004, interACT is a multimillion-dollar joint effort between the schools to develop advanced communication technologies.