In the 23rd century, people will use a gizmo that looks suspiciously like a flashlight to communicate with alien species.
That's in the world of "Star Trek." In the here and now, a small Marina del Rey company is working on technology that could lead to a "universal translator" for the real world.
Language Weaver Inc. was founded in 2002 by two USC computer scientists who developed methods to teach computers to translate by force-feeding them huge volumes of text. Early investors included the CIA.
Though portable translation devices are only a long-range goal, the company's technology is already being used, along with that of a voice-recognition software firm, to do on-the-fly translations of television programs.
If successful, such projects could help the company win a piece of the growing global translation business. According to a 2002 survey by market research firm ABI Research, revenue worldwide was $7.9 billion that year and will reach $11.5 billion by 2007.
Despite decades of development, computerized translation accounts for only a small fraction of that market. IDC, a research firm that specializes in technology matters, estimates that computer language-translation sales will be $187 million this year.
Language Weaver uses a broadcast from the Arabiclanguage television network Al Jazeera to demonstrate its technology. As a news show from the network is displayed on one part of a computer screen, Arabic text derived from a BBN Technologies voice-recognition program runs down one side. Next to it appears Language Weaver's English text.
The end result is not something that would make human translators fear for their jobs: "Research conducted by parents Muslims in Iraq and changing realities of initial options," reads the English translation, "on the ground that it would boycott the elections today to start new staff...."
"This is still an early stage," said Language Weaver Chief Executive Bryce Benjamin.
Indeed, computers will not be able to match human translators for many years, experts say.
"Bringing quality to computerized translations over a broad range of materials is akin to achieving artificial intelligence," said Robert Frederking, senior systems scientist at Carnegie Mellon University's Language Technologies Institute in Pittsburgh. "Language is intrinsically tied to what we do as humans. To solve the big problems in language, you have to solve A.I."
