The Speechalator

That’s what they are calling a prototype two-way speech-to-speech system that translates medical information from Arabic to English and English to Arabic and runs on an iPaq handheld computer. The Speechalator. Pretty cool. Original article here. Via Slashdot.

There was a time when I had a goal to speak several languages. I studied Putonghua for a while, but I guess I realized a few years ago that it won’t be that long before the Universal Translator becomes a reality. So it’s probably not worth the mental cycles. Hope I’m right. How long though? Ten years? Does anyone have any credible ideas on the challenges, progress, etc?