One of the most important innovations from Microsoft Translator was showcased earlier this year. During a  talk at the Code Conference, by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, unveiled an early look at the Skype Translator app. This app represents a breakthrough in language translation jointly developed by Microsoft researchers and Skype engineers, bridging geographic and language barriers through the use of real-time speech-to-speech translation.The functionality combines Skype voice and instant messaging, Microsoft Translator and machine-learning based technologies for speech recognition used in Windows and Windows Phone Translation applications.

In addition to the Skype Translator app, below is a summary of additional highlights from Microsoft Translator over the last year:

• Song Translator App – Last fall, our Translator Summer Interns: Michelle Agcamaran, Priya Ganesan, and Kat Zhou built an app to showcase the capabilities of Translator and our partners in a new and interesting way. After three months of work they launched: Song Translator. The song translation app allows users to upload their favorite songs with lyrics, add timestamps to the lyrics, then translate and record the song in another language.
• Release of Welsh – In February, Microsoft Translator is announced Welsh as a new supported language in partnership with the National Assembly for Wales and leveraging the Microsoft Translator Hub. The Welsh became the latest to join a growing list of languages to benefit from translation services provided by Microsoft Translator.
• Blog Plug In – Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc. released a new Bing Translator plugin that lets you apply the power of Bing Translator to any WordPress site running version 3.8 or later to translate your site into any of the 45+ supported languages. Adding WordPress to the list of blogging sites including Tumblr.
• App Localization – This year Multilingual App Toolkit (MAT) team announced the release of MAT 3.1. The Multilingual App Toolkit integrates with Microsoft Visual Studio to provide Windows Store apps and Windows Phone apps with translation support powered, translation file management, and editor tools powered by Microsoft Translator.
• Yammer Language Support – Earlier this year, Yammer announced key localization updates across its web client, mobile apps, and the Yammer Success Center, and introduced message translation in both the iOS and Android Yammer apps, powered by Microsoft Translator®. 
• Updates to Windows and Windows Phone Translator Apps –  Over the past year updates were released for Windows and Windows Phone Translator apps which include: speech-to-speech for Windows app, new offline language packs, new language support for camera, keyboard modes, user interface design improvements, amongst many other updates and improvements.

Real-time communication and collaboration technologies from video conferencing to social media have removed the physical barriers of communication and today translation technology is paving the way for removing the barrier of language in the same way. The Microsoft Translator team is committed to helping to enable business, communities, and consumers to be able to communicate and collaborate regardless of language through technology innovation.

This is just a small sampling of the many things that Microsoft Translator has been working on over the past year, to learn more about what Microsoft Translator has been up to, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Happy translating!
 

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During Nadella’s conversation with Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg of the Re/code tech website relating to a new era of personal computing, he asked Gurdeep Pall, Microsoft Corporate Vice President for Lync and Skype, to join him on stage. While on stage, Pall demonstrated for the first time publicly the Skype Translator app, with Pall conversing in English with German-speaking Microsoft employee Diana Heinrichs.

Watch the Demo

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Speech has been a natural evolution of the translation work that Microsoft has been delivering to consumers and businesses across a broad number of products and solutions. The work represents over a decade of work within Microsoft Research that has become a reality through a series of remarkable research advances in translation, speech recognition, and language processing. This demonstration is the next step in delivering the real time speech translation experience to users that Rick Rashid, then the worldwide head of Microsoft Research, demonstrated a year and a half ago.

The Skype Translator app will available first on Windows 8 later this year as a limited beta.

It has been an exciting day as we unveil this remarkable technology advancement that brings people one step closer to removing barriers of communication regardless of language or location!

Learn More about Skype Translator

• Skype Translator from Microsoft Video
• TechNet Blog Post from Gurdeep Pall, Corporate Vice President of Skype and Lync at Microsoft
• Microsoft Research Feature Story: Enabling Cross-Lingual Conversations in Real Time
• Code Conference Coverage of the Demo

The post Unveiling Breakthroughs in Real-Time Translation with Skype Translator appeared first on Microsoft Translator Blog.

Advancements in technology to support and preserve languages create greater awareness of the linguistic and cultural traditions celebrated throughout the world, which in turn promote understanding, tolerance and dialogue. Helping to enable business, communities, and consumers to communicate and collaborate across language barriers through technology innovation is a core focus for the Microsoft Translator team.  

As part of that focus, Microsoft Translator is announcing Welsh as a new supported language in partnership with the National Assembly for Wales and leveraging the Microsoft Translator Hub. The Welsh language today becomes the latest to join a growing list of languages to benefit from translation services provided by Microsoft Translator.

In 2012, the National Assembly passed the Official Language Act into law, which placed a statutory duty on the Assembly Commission to treat both languages on the basis of equality. 

The Assembly’s Presiding Officer, Dame Rosemary Butler, said:  “One of my key roles is to ensure that all the people of Wales are able to engage with the Assembly’s work, whether through the Welsh or English language. That’s why we have been working with Microsoft to create an automatic language translation system to help the Assembly to meet our own language goals.”

Machine translation is a key part of the Assembly’s commitment to delivering a fully bilingual institution where businesses and services can be delivered through the Welsh and English languages. Users can now translate to and from Welsh using the breadth of Microsoft products including: Office, Bing Translator as well as in the Bing Translator applications for Windows Phone and Windows. 

[View:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeHcZEd7VEo]

 In addition to backend service updates to the Microsoft Translator API, new updates have been released for Windows and Windows Phone Translator apps which include: 

• Offline Language Packs for Polish and Turkish
• Availability of Polish, Czech, Turkish, Greek and Hungarian in Camera Mode
• Addition of Welsh and Maltese in Keyboard Mode
• Release of Wide Tile for Windows Phone

 To further commemorate IMLD, the Microsoft Local Language Program, a part of Microsoft YouthSpark, announced the Language Toolbox, an additional resource to the Microsoft Language Portal (LLP), serving as a consolidated inventory of free language resources and tools provided by Microsoft to help bridge the gap between language and technology. You can read more about this new resource here. 

At Microsoft, we are excited that the continued advancements of machine translation features and functionality are enabling users to achieve a shared understanding and make the world a little smaller every day.

To Learn More 

• National Assembly for Wales Machine Translation Site 
• National Assembly for Wales Blog
• Video Blog from Presiding Officer Dame Rosemary Butler AM
• Video Blog from Rhodri Glyn Thomas AM and in Welsh
• Microsoft Citizenship Blog
• Language Portal Blog

The post Celebrating International Mother Language Day with the Launch of Welsh & New Features appeared first on Microsoft Translator Blog.

Now users can leverage the power of speech-to-speech translations from any Windows device. Simply speak into your device by using the microphone feature to place orders or ask for directions, and hear the translated words in a native speaker’s accent.

In addition to speech input, this new release of the Translator app now offers users the option to use the camera feature in both portrait and landscape mode. Simply point your camera, scan and translate printed language using your tablet or PC to create subtitles for everyday life. 

 
Today, we are also releasing new updates to the Bing Translator app for Windows Phone 8 which include improvements to the speech functionality for better quality and responsiveness of translations, in addition a redesigned user interface for the existing and recently released offline language packs. By downloading offline language packs, you can maintain translation on the go when not connected to the internet and avoid expensive data roaming charges.

You can now download the free app for Windows from the Windows store here and for the Windows Phone from the Windows Phone store here.  Existing users who have already downloaded the app, will be able to access the new updates without needing to download it again. Whether on your Windows Phone or any Windows device, the Translator app is the perfect travel companion to help overcome language barriers, even when there’s no internet connection. To learn more about Bing Translator apps, check out the Translator for Windows and the Translator for Windows Phone product pages.

These apps will become your window to the world, no matter where you are.

The post Say ‘Hello World!’ Announcing Speech Input for the Bing Translator app for Windows appeared first on Microsoft Translator Blog.

Thousands of developers are at BUILD 2013 in San Francisco this week where Microsoft is showcasing how they can create great experiences for their consumers on Windows platforms by utilizing these technologies in their own applications.

Today during Steven Guggenheimer’s keynote at BUILD, Microsoft showcased the availability of an exciting new update to Twitter for Windows Phone – bringing instant translation of Tweets that are in a different language than your own. Over the last year, Microsoft has been working with the team at Twitter to explore how its translation technology, based on Microsoft Research’s extensive advancements in machine learning, can help the global Twitter community better communicate across language barriers.

With this update, a soccer/football fan can still follow the news about their favorite soccer team even if the breaking news on Twitter is not in their language. Tapping on a Tweet with a globe icon, which indicates translation is available, expands the Tweet and shows translated text right below the original content. The built-in Tweet translation feature is available for the 38 languages supported by the app powered by Microsoft Translator. Download/update your Windows Phone Twitter app to try it out for yourself!

“Breaking down language barriers with world-class research and engineering has been the guiding principle behind the development of Microsoft Translator, and Twitter is an excellent new addition to community of customers and developers leveraging Microsoft’s translation technology for their users,” said Peter Lee, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Research US. “The integration of machine translation technology from Microsoft Research has the ability to broaden any application’s impact through a substantial increase in accessibility to real time communications and information sharing. No longer is language a barrier to real time instant connections around the world.”

Windows Phone application developers can take advantage of the Microsoft Translator API to bring the power of instant translation to their apps. Windows developers can also download the just announced Translator control for Windows to reach a global audience and differentiate their Windows applications.

As the next billion users come online, we look forward to delivering and enabling many more global experiences by continuing to harness the innovations coming out of our research work and data platforms with developers, app builders and partners. 

The post From Tweet to Translate: Microsoft’s translation service powers new translation feature in Twitter for Windows Phone appeared first on Microsoft Translator Blog.

In the latest in our series of walkthroughs, we step you through everything you need to do to build a simple translation app that takes your text and translates it into a variety of different languages using the free Microsoft Translator APIs. It then uses the native speech synthesis in Windows 8 to ‘read out’ the translation with the correct pronunciation.

The walkthrough takes you from soup to nuts in signing up for the free service, getting your credentials, installing and configuring the tools, designing, developing and testing your application.

Check it out at:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/translation/p/windowsphone8.aspx

The full source code for the app is available here:

http://translator.blob.core.windows.net/msdnwalkthroughs/Transl8.zip

Screenshot:

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