Microsoft has launched real-time voice translation in Skype, which can now translate a person's voice in real-time using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to make the translated voice sound similar to the original speaker.
"We are launching translation of Skype to Skype video calls in real-time, using your natural voice. This means that you can have a conversation with someone who speaks a different language, and the translation will happen automatically, in real-time, as the conversation is taking place," Microsoft said in a blog post.
The real-time translations with natural voice will be made available in the group video calling feature and Telephony in the next months, said the blog post.
The new translation feature uses AI to automatically detect the languages being spoken during a video call and translate them in real-time.
In order to do this, speech recognition technology and natural language processing are combined to understand, interpret, and translate spoken words.
Moreover, if users activate the use of their natural voice, the company says that they will use AI to sample their words and tune the translation to sound like them, making the conversation more human, according to the blog post.
This is a huge step forward for Skype, as it makes it possible for people who speak different languages to easily communicate with each other," said the company.
A visitor poses for a photo with Microsoft's logo at Microsoft's corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington State, the United States, Sept. 19, 2015. (Xinhua/Yang Lei/IANS)
