From Newsgroup: alt.tv.star-trek.tos
From Address: YourName{at}YourISP.com
Subject: Re: Microsoft emulates Star Trek...

In article , Wouter
Valentijn  wrote:
> ToolPackinMama schreef op 4-6-2014 01:08:
> > That's what the article says...
> >
> >
http://www.geek.com/microsoft/microsoft-emulates-star-trek-turns-skype-into-
> > a-universal-translator-1595044/
> 
> Cool. But like the regular translation service on the web, it still 
> needs a lot of work. There are some translation errors and a lot of the 
> time grammar is just off. I think grammar is the great weak point. And 
> if you get to stuff like 'figures of speech' I think an automatic system 
> (for now) is completely lost. It would need to find cultural 
> counterparts first.
> For instance: "Out of sight, out of mind", would, translated back and 
> forth, in Dutch be "Out of the eye, out of the heart."
> I read once about an early computer system that tried translating such a 
> thing. It came up with something like: "Blind idiot."
> 
> For the moment I would rely more on well trained human translators.
> 
> BTW, I think Microsoft has always been in love with Trek.
> Ever notice the colors of the logo? Homage to TOS shirt colors?  :-)

There will always be errors in any automated translation, especially
spoken translation. Computers simply are intelligent enough to
understand context, etc.
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