Through a partnership with Voxeo and Language Line Services, Skype is now offering real-time language translation services for Skype voice calls. 150 languages are supported.
Here’s what I like about this: It’s easy to use (add the service to your Skype contacts), its not horrendously expensive ($2.99 per minute, no other fees, taken out of Skype Out credits), and you can use this on the fly with no scheduling (you can get an interpreter on average in 45 seconds after an initial request).
One problem: I’ve verified that the service works on a PC, but it does not work at all on my Mac.
Now, if Skype just added a call record feature it would be perfect.
This is awesome. Better than the text translation provided by google
Looks like we are moving really into a different era
This is a great idea – May be helpful for Web Based Ecommerce or Travel Businesses
BTW:
Ironically, there is a grammatical
error on THEIR site :LOL
“If you need to dialout the a non-English speaking person,”
as well as an HTML error in their Title Tag
title>Share Skype – <b>Language Line® Personal Interpreter</b>
I think this could potentially finally resolve call center language issues. Imagine speaking into a system that translates for you to a customer of another language.
Can’t wait until they can roll voice recognition into this. It should be fairly easy to feed the person’s recognized voice chunks into a Google translation-like engine and then generate voice out the other end. I’ve thought about this before, but I can’t see a way around the lag. However, I think it would probably still be better than waiting for a translator, and much cheaper.
Recently I has some Skype conversations, and recorded them with the plugin ‘Pamela’. Very good, would be great if Skype integrated this feature. Skype already supports it. Highly recommended.
In order for this service to resolve call center language issues I think the price would have to drop dramatically and might require full automation w/o any human interpreter.
Whoa nice! I agree with the comments above, for this to become mainstream it needs to be human translator free.
That’s a great service !
I remember trying to call a guy in ukraine, his english was very poor.
That service would have greatly help in our ‘painfull’ discussion …
that’s about $180/hr. i wonder how much Skype is paying these translators
could be a high profit margin business if it is scalable…
These translators are payed not higher than US$1500 a month in CR
What do you think about a free marketplace for translators. I speak 5 languages, not all fluent, but still. So if I can make some extra bucks by offering my services through a dynamic marketplace like en eBay system, you could have an efficient prce setting for these translating services. So for not that commen languages you will pay more by the minute, with others where you have a lot of supply of translators you will have lower proces. And the marketplace gets a % fee for every minute.
Great business model, as the marketplace makes more as the adoption of the functionality gets traction
Yes! Love this idea.
I’ve written here – http://ict4peac...-to-the-rescue/ – about the potential of this technology for online dispute resolution and peacebuilding.
Truly amazing stuff.
For years I have heard people saying, “it’s a small world”, and with modern travel and the internet it has proven to be true. With the introduction of services like this the world just got smaller, and barriers to doing business outside your country and outside your language has become even smaller yet again. Pretty amazing really.
Johan Bosini
Skype’s capacity for business model innovation is impressive. I blogged about the business model perspective of this new translation service here:
http://business...-aiming-at.html
Cheers from Lausanne, Switzerland, Alex
Michael, here’s the scoop, the same service already exists on Skype. The service is provided with Stand4U, a France-based company, and is charged 2.5 euro a minute (around $3.1 USD). The same main languages are offered. We reported on it some weeks ago.
Well, I am not so hopeful about it. I am not a fan of machine translation as until there is any satisfactory device to trasnalte from one language to another. Google’s translation is perhaps one example. I wish that skype can do something better.
This looks like a revolution thing to me. I am studying languages so I think it’s going to be a new tendency for translation and interpreting in future.
But one thing I don’t quite understand is how can they get an interpreter who specialized in a desirable field within such a shot time. For example, if I call up now and want an interpreter to help me with a negotiation with a chemical company with a lot of special term, will they be able to offer that?
Happy to announce that the The ULRTMT – Skype Version 2.5 Beta “Universal Language Real-Time Message Translator” now supports:
Real Time Chat Language Translation!
Yes, you can now chat with others in your own native language and have your text translated in “Real-Time”. Both your sent and received chat messages.
The following Language Translations in Real-Time for Skype Chats are:
English to Arabic BETA
English to Chinese (Simplified) BETA
English to Chinese Traditional
English to Dutch
English to French
English to German
English to Greek
English to Italian
English to Japanese BETA
English to Korean BETA
English to Portuguese
English to Russian
English to Spanish
Arabic to English
Chinese (Simplified) BETA to English
Chinese Traditional to English
Dutch to English
Dutch to French
French to Dutch
French to English
French to German
French to Greek
French to Italian
French to Portuguese
French to Spanish
German to English
German to French
Greek to English
Greek to French
Italian to English
Italian to French
Japanse to English Beta
Korean to English Beta
Portuguese to English
Portuguese to French
Russian to English
Spanish to English
Spanish to French
All of the above translations work in Real-time using Skype Chats
More information here:
http://testing....icle&sid=49
I found about about Transclick for Skype, a plug-in that translates the chat text on Skype’s instant messenger, which was launched in May 2006 in Beta form. It is superb.
Transclick for Skype has already won a Runner-Up Award from Skype for the P2P Messaging catagory:
http://share.sk..._apiplugin.html
Transclick has also won a Grand Prize Award for Best Application Layer Technology at the GlobalComm2006 from the Telecommunications Industry Association. Transclick has also won the Grand Prize for Best Business Productivity Application from RIM Blackberry for its Blackberry email and SMS translator which translates incoming and outgoing messages into 16 languages, to/from English!
Transclick for Skype allows a Skype user to select up to 16 different language destinations from their home language.
See: http://home.tra...ck.com/products
to try it…with a subscription with login and password and download it at:
http://download...click.com/skype
Its very user friendly…
That’s crazy stupid expensive at $2.99/min.
Here is a Skpe chat message language translator that translates Skype chat messages, both ways, in real-time, in 43 different languages. It also can speak your Skype chat messages and Skype contact status changes in 10 different languages, plus using a British accent. More here:
Click Here