Microsoft Research has shown off software that translates your spoken words into another language while preserving the accent, timbre, and intonation of your actual voice.In a demo of the prototype software (starts around the 12 minute mark), Rick Rashid, Microsoft’s chief research officer, says a long sentence in English, and then has it translated into Spanish, Italian, and Mandarin. You can definitely hear an edge of digitized “Microsoft Sam,” but overall it’s remarkable how the three translations still sound just like Rashid.
Now, Microsoft has a tendency to show off products that are years away from reality (hell, some of them never show up in real life at all). But this is a product that could literally change the world. And I'm willing to bet that some evangelical Christians will protest the device as soon as it's produced because God destroyed the Tower of Babel, so that'll be fun to watch, too.
