Microsoft on Monday announced the first phase of
its Skype Translator preview program, which initially will facilitate
conversations between English and Spanish speakers. The translator will
convert spoken words both ways.
It also will translate instant messages in 40 languages. Translations occur in near-real time.Participants must run Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 Technical Preview on a desktop or tablet. You can sign up for the preview.
Children in two schools -- Peterson School in Mexico City and Stafford Elementary School in Tacoma, Washington -- have tried out Skype Translator, Microsoft said.
How Skype Translator Works
Skype Translator's automatic speech recognition conducts a deep neural network analysis of what was said in a conversation, comparing the words spoken against snippets of millions of previously recorded samples.The audio then is transformed to a series of words in text that apparently correspond to the meaning of what was stated.
