Toshiba works on instant voice translation software for cell phones
It makes a lot of sense, but it seems to be hard to realize: Using the cell phone for instant voice translation of basic sentences whenever you're in a foreign country. But Toshiba is one of the companies working on this, and apparently they're almost ready to offer a decent solution.
Their translation software, in its current iteration, enables cell phones to interpret between English, Chinese and Japanese. Toshiba says that the database, used on their TG01 "smartphone" (pictured on the left), for example, boasts a database of 30,000 words spoken in each of these languages. Toshiba optimized existing PC software for use in cell phones, which obviously have less processing power.
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Toshiba works on instant voice translation software for cell phones