Why limit yourself to knowing only one language when you pretend to know many more? That's what a bunch of U.S. scientists figured when they set about to create a "Tower Of Babel" translator. A series of electrodes connect to the user's neck and face to detect movements that are made when users mouth words. That is, by simply mouthing the word you want translated, rather than outright speaking them, the device can translate. There's two working prototypes right now, one that translates Chinese into English and one that translates from English into Spanish or German. Using a small vocabulary of about 100-200 words, scientists says they've attained an accuracy of 80 percent.
But think of the bigger picture: if scientists successfully made a device that translates all the world's languages, we'd be left without terrible Brad Pitt movies. And that, dear friends, would be a tragedy of unfathomable size and scope.
'Tower of Babel' translator made [BBC News]