Japanese mobile operator will expand trial to cover 10 languages and 10,000 users

NTT Docomo will conduct a second trial of an experimental cloud-based service for real-time interpretation between Japanese and other languages via mobile devices. The trial is scheduled to take place from 1 June to 30 September.

The first trial, held from November 2011 to March 2012, involved some 1,000 Docomo subscribers and about 70 percent of the participants reported that they would like to use the service again.

In response the second trial will involve about 10,000 users and will expand to cover 10 languages besides Japanese. Seven of the languages will be available for face-to-face communication between participants.

The translator phone service utilizes Docomo’s “network cloud,” which integrates the company’s cloud and mobile network resources to handle the heavy processing required for rapid real-time interpretation.

Interpretation is handled in three steps: machine recognition of spoken words, rendering into another language, and conversion into a voice readout that the other party hears. The network cloud allows interpretation to be processed at the same rapid speed even after the introduction of seven additional languages.

Docomo expects to further enhance its translator phone service based on feedback from this second trial, aiming to launch a commercial service by March 2013.

Alex Dupont

See Also

• More about machine translation
  Raw machine translation may be sufficient for communicating via social networks. However, you may have to consider human translation if you require high quality.
• NTT Docomo brings Babel Fish closer to reality
  The Babel Fish was a creation of science fiction author Douglas Adams that could be placed in the ear enabling the user to understand anything said in any language. Smartphones and cloud computing are bringing a limited subset of that capability close to reality.
• Download PDF brochure Mobility Doc 36 (requires PDF reader)
  2 Page brochure released by NTT Docomo in January, 2012, explaining the concept. The graphic was excerpted from this publication.