BOLT is an international research initiative to develop breakthrough language translation technologies. Expanded global access to diverse means of communication results in more information being produced in more languages more quickly than ever before.

Last month we reported that SRI International had been awarded a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) $7.1 million contract under the agency’s Broad Operational Language Translation (BOLT) program. Now we’d like to share with you some further information on the BOLT initiative.

In October 2011, DARPA launched the BOLT program to attempt to create new techniques for automated language translation (machine translation) and linguistic analysis that can be applied to the informal genres of text and speech common in online and in-person communication.

BOLT is aimed at enabling communication with non-English-speaking populations and identifying important information in foreign-language sources by:

1) allowing English-speakers to understand foreign-language sources of all genres, including chat, messaging and informal conversation;

2) providing English-speakers the ability to quickly identify targeted information in foreign-language sources using natural-language queries;

3) enabling multi-turn communication in text and speech with non-English speakers. If successful, BOLT will deliver all capabilities free from domain or genre limitations.

Future phases of BOLT will include research into new techniques to enable computers to carry on multi-modal dialogues with humans, comprehend concepts, and generate responses in multilingual environments.

See Also

• More about language translation
  Translation is the act of rewriting a document, changing it into another language. The original language is called the "source" language. The language into which the source text is translated is called the "target" language.
• More about machine translation
  Expanded global access to diverse means of communication is resulting in more information being produced in more languages more quickly than ever before.
• Broad Operational Language Translation (BOLT)
  Expanded global access to diverse means of communication is resulting in more information being produced in more languages more quickly than ever before.
• More about the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
  The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military.

BOLT is an international research initiative to develop breakthrough language translation technologies. Expanded global access to diverse means of communication results in more information being produced in more languages more quickly than ever before.

Last month we reported that SRI International had been awarded a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) $7.1 million contract under the agency’s Broad Operational Language Translation (BOLT) program. Now we’d like to share with you some further information on the BOLT initiative.

In October 2011, DARPA launched the BOLT program to attempt to create new techniques for automated language translation (machine translation) and linguistic analysis that can be applied to the informal genres of text and speech common in online and in-person communication.

BOLT is aimed at enabling communication with non-English-speaking populations and identifying important information in foreign-language sources by:

1) allowing English-speakers to understand foreign-language sources of all genres, including chat, messaging and informal conversation;

2) providing English-speakers the ability to quickly identify targeted information in foreign-language sources using natural-language queries;

3) enabling multi-turn communication in text and speech with non-English speakers. If successful, BOLT will deliver all capabilities free from domain or genre limitations.

Future phases of BOLT will include research into new techniques to enable computers to carry on multi-modal dialogues with humans, comprehend concepts, and generate responses in multilingual environments.

See Also

• More about language translation
  Translation is the act of rewriting a document, changing it into another language. The original language is called the "source" language. The language into which the source text is translated is called the "target" language.
• More about machine translation
  Expanded global access to diverse means of communication is resulting in more information being produced in more languages more quickly than ever before.
• Broad Operational Language Translation (BOLT)
  Expanded global access to diverse means of communication is resulting in more information being produced in more languages more quickly than ever before.
• More about the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
  The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military.