Google Readying Real-time, 2-way Translation App, Google Conversation
- Wednesday, March 9th, 2011
- Share this article:
Google is in the final stages of testing of an extension of its Google Translate app called Conversation, which will enable a mobile user to hold a two-way conversation with someone in another language via their mobile phone.
The app was demoed this morning at a Google event for the financial services sector by Google business development manager Amanda Rosenberg, who described it as being at “alpha-beta stage”.
She demoed the app in a double act with a Spanish-speaking Google colleague. The scenario was that Rosenberg was trying to buy a train ticket to Madrid at a Spanish railway station, but could not speak Spanish. She invoked the Conversation feature, then spoke her request for information about trains to Madrid into the phone in English. After she had confirmed that the phrase displayed on screen was correct, the phone read out the phrase in Spanish.
A button then appeared at the bottom of the screen with the phrase “Respond in Spanish” (in Spanish). Rosenberg’s colleague clicked on the button, then spoke his reply in Spanish. Once again, after he had confirmed that the phrase displayed on screen was correct, the phone spoke his answer in English. Then back to Rosenberg, and so on. There’s no date yet for the launch of Conversation.
That was not the only bit of theatre from Google this morning. Rosenberg also used Google Goggles to solve the ‘Difficult’ Sudoku from this morning’s Daily Mail. Using Goggles, she photographed the puzzle. Goggles displayed the photo of the puzzle, with a link titled ‘Solve’ beneath it. When this was clicked, the empty boxes in the puzzle were populated over the course of a few seconds. Judging by the gasps in the room, there are more Sudoku enthusiasts than non-Spanish speakers here.