Bet you didn’t see this one coming. Back in 2007 we wrote about a service called Dial Directions which lets you call a special phone number and verbally ask for directions, which are immediately sent to you via SMS. Today comes news that the company has been acquired by Sakhr Software, a development house specializing in Arabic natural language processing (NLP). And with their powers combined, they’re building a real-time voice translation service that will allow users to translate phrases from their mobile phones on the fly.
It’s a better fit than it sounds. Dial Directions has spent the last few years building mobile applications (it has an app for the iPhone on the App Store), and has also built out the technology required to efficently transfer voice input to servers, where it can then be processed (this server-side processing is also used by Google Voice Search and a number of other apps). Once it makes it to the cloud, this speech will be routed through Sakhr’s software, which is capable of translating English to Arabic and vice-versa. Translated audio and text are then sent back to the mobile phone, all within a matter of seconds.
The companies have jointly produced a beta version of the application for the iPhone and BlackBerry, which you can see in the video below. The application is currently in testing with select enterprise customers, with plans to release a consumer version around the end of the summer.
Sakhr’s customers include the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice, so it wouldn’t be surprising if the technology makes its way out to defense personnel. A Dial Directions spokesperson says that most translation devices in the field abroad rely on a set library of phrases, and says that the new Sakhr translation software should be more flexible. That said, it sounds like this will come with one significant drawback — if your phone can’t reach the network, the software won’t work.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Dial Directions intends to keep its service running for now, though it may not be indefinitely.
That is a cool piece of technology. Is the buyout amount known ?
The next battle is on mobile phones.
cool that is major computer science
UI looks nice.
My email software was acquired by Kuwaitis in 2006 because it supported right to left.
They acquired it for no other reason than the arabic/chinese language support.
As a developer you tend to think that Eastern markets are worthless because most people from those regions steal intellectual property any how, but you have to keep in mind that there are some rich mofos over there in the oil lands.
TC usually never reports acquisitions in the middle east, but they do in fact buy a whole lot of crap. It’s never on the public record though, so you never read about it.
Wow this is an amazing app. i speak arabic but mainly as a second language i could totally use this on my next trip overseas. pretty accurate but it almost sounds like you have to speak like a robot for it to understand you.
Thats cool software, this is the kind of report/blogging TC needs to get back to…
I remember the first PC I used in my life was from Sakhr back in the late 80s, running its own property Arabic Operating system, where I used to play games. But Sakhr PC met the dust for Win-tel based PCs, during the 90s. However this announcement is significant because, I think it is the first time an Arab tech company acquires an American IT company, Dial’s cofounder is Arabic i think.
Yes. I had an MSX-170 running MS Basic 1.0 in the late 80’s. Sakhr (literally ‘rock’) is a household name in the Middle East.
very impressive
This would be super cool if you could have it in different languages. Plus, spoken translations would be good – often, we don’t know what the pronounciation of a foreign word would be
This will certainly not help hard line republicans who try to keep the distance between “them” and “us” as big as possible AKA gaining benefits by alienating Muslims: G-BAM will suffer!
Wouldn’t http://www.Yamli.com be a nice buy for Sakhr???
This is really great stuff. If it does make it to the field, where the people need it desperately, it will be very helpful for communication. This application will expedite the promotion of conflict resolution and global harmony!
TC usually never reports acquisitions in the middle east, but they do in fact buy a whole lot of crap. It’s never on the public record though, so you never read about it.
cool that is major computer science
It was nice to know that there is something going on in arab world about computers and information technology. You did not explain if their services can be used with internet phone also as i m using voip service on my iphone