Monday, October 22, 2012

CNNGo.com

CNNGo.com


Whatever my phone said: NTT DoCoMo's real time speech translation app

Posted: 22 Oct 2012 01:59 AM PDT

by CNNGo staff

translation appIt already does everything else, your phone may as well speak for you too.An Android app by Japan's largest mobile services provider NTT DoCoMo claims to allow people to translate their calls almost immediately.

The next time you need to ask for directions to an obscure Hokkaido dairy farm, you can just approach a local and say it in English, and your phone will take care of the rest.

It is the latest smartphone app to launch amongst a bunch of similar programs aiming to allow people to converse freely in any language. And if it works according to plan, travel may have just got less confusing.

Technology like this will potentially usurp the human translation services industry. And, possibly, Pimsleur.

Using DoCoMo's app, called Hanashite Hon'yaku, people speaking in different languages on either end of a phone conversation can almost immediately translate what they are saying to each other.

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Insider Guide: Best of Dubai

Posted: 21 Oct 2012 11:50 AM PDT

by Jade Bremner

Dubai may be famed for its bigger, bolder, blingier design philosophy, but it's not all shiny buildings and alligator-skin Rolls-Royces.

Its origins as a small fishing settlement centuries ago remains within the cracks.

When you're not withdrawing gold bars from the ATM or planning a stay at a giant Taj Mahal, the best of Dubai brings sand dunes to bash, souks to explore and seafood restaurants that will put any limited expectations to rest.

Dubai has become a go-to career stop for tax-averse foreigners -- it is Arab at its core but capitalist at its edge. And that means glistening shopping malls, outrageous hotels and a lifestyle that has been acclaimed by Mercer as the best in the Middle East.

With a population of just more than 2 million (about 75 percent of which is male), it's flashy and it's ostentatious. That's why the best of Dubai is expected to draw 15 million tourists by 2015.

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