IP: DARPA to build Adams' Babelfish

[David Farber <dfarber () earthlink net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Nathan Cochrane <ncochrane () theage fairfax com au>
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 15:25:26 
To: dave () farber net
Subject: DARPA to build Adams' Babelfish

Hi Dave

All I can say is, "Wow!". Wouldn't we all love (loewe, agape, amore, 
liebe) to have one of these beauties DARPA is building.

"The Babylon program will lead to rapid, two-way, multilingual speech 
translation interfaces for users in combat and other field environments."
http://www.darpa.mil/ipto/research/babylon/index.html
(spotted on /.)

I remember seeing some work that C-STAR (Consortium for Speech 
Translation Advanced Research) did on this a few years ago. The idea was 
to enable travellers in foreign lands to communicate more effectively 
with their hosts. A worthy goal, but like the Internet, it may be the 
threat of war that spurs this advance.

http://www.c-star.org/

I'm intrigued by the "X Files" possibility of turning a system such as 
the one DARPA proposes towards analysing the SETI@Home data. If it was 
easily expandable in some way, maybe we would discover that aliens have 
always been there, we just didn't understand what they were saying.

But am I the only one who is mildly disturbed by the connotations 
explicit in the project's name, its splash page and the linkage to the 
project's mission badge, depicting the twin trade towers?


Some more research on ASR
AUTOMATIC SPEECH TRANSLATION BASED ON THE SEMANTIC STRUCTURE
http://www.asel.udel.edu/icslp/cdrom/vol2/133/a133.pdf

Introduction of ETRI automatic speech translation system for traveler aid
http://voice.etri.re.kr/pds/papers/icsp2001-sjlee.pdf

C-STAR III Background (translated using Babelfish)
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www-clips.imag.fr/geod/projets/&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%2522cstar%2Biii%2522%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF8%26oe%3DUTF8%26sa%3DG

Wired C-STAR article c.1999
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,20747,00.html

Announcement of C-STAR's first public trial
http://www-clips.imag.fr/projets/cstar/clips/IntPressRelease.html

Douglas Adams Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~thiekeju/dontpanic.html

Douglas Adams official site
http://www.douglasadams.com/

Further links
http://nespole.itc.it/public/pagine/related.htm

-- 

Nathan Cochrane
Deputy IT Editor
:Next:
The Age and Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.next.theage.com.au



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