Skype opens door to real-time translation feature

woo that's scary. with the current level of machine translation I can see people getting into fights for a misundestanding XDDD

Sounds like an interesting tool. I'll certainly consider using it one of these days.

Sweet! I can't wait to come to iOS and Android!

Get serious. I use Skype with people in many countries, and often the audio quality is so crappy, and so many words get lost that it is doubtful a machine would be able to make out what it is supposed to translate. Of course, Microsoft owns Skype, so that pretty much says it all. Microsoft should first focus on getting Skype to do its current tasks, but that would not be Microsoft style.

well if it's anything like google translate then it'll be a painful experience, like listening to someone scratch a blackboard with their nails.

“We are breaking down language barriers that have historically made it challenging for friends and families to connect,” Yasmin Kahn of Skype said in a blog post.

Right. So families and friends don't speak the same language?

"Hey Mom, I can't understand you! Let's use Skype. Oh wait. How do you know we should connect using Skype if you can't understand what I just said?"

Breaking down language barriers just another way of saying: forget foreign language skills just use our product.

Not against automation but when it starts to affect person to person skills, etc.

Hey let's have a 3 country conference but we all need to use Skype to commumicate, or go shopping using Skype while overseas.

Hahaha, another step towards the universal translator?

http://www.startrek.com/database_article/universal-translator

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_translator

So families and friends don't speak the same language?

Sadly, some 2nd-gen immigrants don't speak the language of their grandparents still back in the old country.

Get serious. I use Skype with people in many countries, and often the audio quality is so crappy, and so many words get lost that it is doubtful a machine would be able to make out what it is supposed to translate. Of course, Microsoft owns Skype, so that pretty much says it all. Microsoft should first focus on getting Skype to do its current tasks, but that would not be Microsoft style.

Turn off video so you're only using an audio stream.

Yeah, I use Skype every day, usually audio only, but sometimes with screen sharing, with people in multiple countries and the quality is great.

Translators help if the level of the foreign-language knowledge is enough to understand the conversation context. Otherwise it is completely useless and prone to misunderstandings. Even professional translators sometimes don´t know what they are talking about, let alone a dumb computer.

I am quiet happy using hangouts.

Yeah, Hangouts is pretty solid as well.