Skype's awesome real-time language translation feature demoed by Microsoft

Skype is pushing the envelope in real-time language translation and this was clearly demonstrated recently during an on-stage Q&A with Re/code’s Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg the Code Conference in Ranchos Palos Verdes, California, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella talked about how we are entering a new era of more personal computing. He discussed Microsoft’s goal of creating computing experiences that are more natural, more human, more like us. Very cool.

Illustrating an example of more human computing, Gurdeep Pall, corporate vice president of Skype and Lync, joined Satya on stage to unveil an early look at Skype Translator, a product in development that will be available as a beta for Windows 8.1 in certain languages by the end of this year. Skype Translator helps remove geographic and language barriers through real-time speech-to-speech translation. Developed by Microsoft researchers and Skype engineers, the technology represents a significant breakthrough in language translation.

Gurdeep, speaking English, had a conversation with German-speaking Microsoft employee Diana Heinrichs over Skype, and their conversation was translated in real-time both through speech and text. You can see a video of the demo and read more about the app at the Official Microsoft Blog.

To learn more about Microsoft’s research advances in speech recognition, language processing and machine translation, check out feature story and infographic.