Microsoft has unveiled a “real-time” language translation feature for its internet phone service Skype.<\/p>\n
Chief executive Satya Nadella said the firm would launch a test version of the service, dubbed Skype Translator, for Windows 8 later this year.<\/p>\n
The move comes as competition in the internet-based phone service sector has been rising, forcing firms to look at ways to attract more users.<\/p>\n
According to Microsoft, Skype currently has 300 million monthly users globally.<\/p>\n
“It is going to make sure you can communicate with anybody without language barriers,” said Mr Nadella, who took over as chief executive in February.<\/p>\n
The firm did not say if the service will be offered for free or if the users will have to pay a fee.<\/p>\n
‘Decades of work’<\/p>\n
Microsoft had first showcased the technology nearly two years ago during a presentation in China.<\/p>\n
At the time,the firm published a blog\u00a0saying that researchers at Microsoft Research and the University of Toronto had made a breakthrough in reducing the error rate in speech recognition by over 30%.<\/p>\n
It said it achieved this by using a technique called Deep Neural Networks, which is patterned after human brain behaviour and allows researchers to train more discriminative and better speech recognisers than previous methods.<\/p>\n
“As we add more data to the training we believe that we will get even better results,” it had said.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Gurdeep Pall, corporate vice president of Skype said the latest feature\u00a0was a result of “decades of work”.<\/p>\n
“We’ve invested in speech recognition, automatic translation and machine learning technologies for more than a decade, and now they’re emerging as important components in this more personal computing era,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It is early days for this technology, but the Star Trek vision for a Universal Translator isn’t a galaxy away, and its potential is every bit as exciting as those Star Trek examples.”<\/p>\n
Wide ranging applications<\/p>\n
Microsoft bought Skype in May 2011 for $8.5bn (\u00a35.2bn) – making it the firm’s biggest acquisition at the time.<\/p>\n
However, it has been facing increasing competition from a multitude of rivals, including Google Hangouts, Apple’s Facetime, Blackberry’s BBM, Tango and Viber.<\/p>\n
Manoj Menon, managing director at consulting firm Frost & Sullivan said that once launched, the new feature could have wide ranging applications in sectors such as education and tourism.<\/p>\n
He added that the translation feature may also help Microsoft to integrate Skype with its office social network site Yammer.<\/p>\n
Microsoft bought Yammer – which operates like Facebook for communication within companies – for $1.2bn in 2012.<\/p>\n
“Microsoft has acquired some great assets such as Yammer and Skype over the past few years,” Mr Menon said.<\/p>\n
“The ability to integrate these together will help unlock their value and the translate feature is a wonderful step in that direction.”<\/p>\n
Skype has also been taking other steps to try and attract more users.<\/p>\n
Last year, it confirmed that it had developed technology for 3D video calls. But it has said it could be many years before the technology is launched.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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