[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Star Trek-like Universal Translator a Step Closer here

[mulciber]

If there are any professional translators reading this, you are laughing now. Mere transposition of words without cultural and syntactic understanding is not translation. Some extremely minimal translation can be done this way, but it's the assertion "you can say anything you want..." that will make any prof. translator double over. Try using Google translations on the phrase "double over". Then "back-translate" it. Hahaha.

[rasmasyean]

It's better than nothing.
And with cloud based computing, they can evolve and program more metaphoric contexts into the system to make it a little better as it gets along and they learn. It's not like it's supposed to be a product that is completely at its last stage once it hits the shelves.
Anyway, humans are adaptable and can learn and infer meanings from the computer's mistakes. After a while humans will "get used to" the quirks of the system and know that the translation really meant this instead of that.
Even people who speak the same language from a different "sector" of society and slight accents can make mistakes in understanding. But it's when you interact after a while with each other, you "learn" how to understand the other person. Like when you have an upper-class person and a lower-class person talking to each other. The more these people were raised and dwelled in their own environments, the less they are in sync with their communication. And their choice of words convey specific metaphors and even intentions that sometimes can unintentionally insult each other too!