INDUSTRY INTERVIEW: SpeechGear
Robert Palmquist
President and Chief Executive Officer
SpeechGear
Q: Can you tell us a little about SpeechGear and how its products are relevant to the military?
A: SpeechGear is a small business formed in April 2001. Our corporate mission has always remained the same—to develop a complete solution for instantly translating anything you see, hear, say, read, write or type. SpeechGear’s systems do not replace the trained interpreter, but rather augment their capabilities by providing our warfighters with instant yet accurate, multi-lingual, bi-directional translation. The need for this instant translation capability is especially apparent in locations such as the Middle East, Korea and Thailand, where the written and spoken languages are considerably different from English.
In an ideal situation there would be ample availability of trained interpreters to support our warfighters at all times and in all situations. Unfortunately, this is not the case. In many instances the warfighter can be faced with a delay in obtaining interpretation services. The military does a fantastic job on training new interpreters, but this is a time-consuming and expensive process. This problem is further compounded in that it is difficult to anticipate which languages will be needed in the future. Currently there is a shortage of trained Iraqi speakers. A few years from now, will this also be the case for other Middle Eastern dialects and languages, or perhaps Indonesian languages?
As an alternative to having an ample supply of trained interpreters, the local populace can be employed to provide these services. This approach also has a downside in that it is difficult to determine if the individual is someone who can be trusted to provide accurate translations at all times, and to not divulge obtained information to opposition forces. SpeechGear’s systems are designed to help solve these problems by providing instant bidirectional translation of multiple languages.
Q: What products are available under your Compadre instant language translation line?
A: The Compadre product suite includes five bi-directional modules. Each module can be used independently or merged in any combination to form your desired instant language translation solution. These products can be run directly on your computer, or for sitewide applications, client-server architecture can be used. Compadre:Interact translates conversations—you speak to the system, it repeats what you said in a different language and generates a transcript of the conversation. There is no memorizing pre-recorded phrases or being constrained to limited domains, because it provides real-time translation of bi-directional continuous speech.
Compadre:Interpreter is the next generation of PDA translators. It is a lower-cost alternative to Interact. With Interpreter’s PhraseBuilder features, you are no longer limited to using phrases that someone else has entered into the system. Speaker-independent speech recognition, multiple voice synthesis options, a dictionary with more than 40,000 entries and many other features are included in the software.
Compadre:Document provides quick and accurate translations of Microsoft Office files such as PowerPoint briefings and Word documents. If you want a quick overview of the document, or if you need a complete and accurate translation ready for distribution and presentation, Document will generate the translation for you. When it’s time to give the presentation, DocumentViewer simultaneously shows the original document along with your translated versions.
Compadre:Camera is designed to translate anything you see. Any text that you can scan or take a picture of, such as signs, menus and documents, is translated in seconds. Multiple languages are supported, including Arabic, Korean, Chinese and Japanese.
Compadre:Composer provides a common translation engine for the entire Compadre product line. This ensures that you have the same reliable translations for all of your applications while keeping your database maintenance costs to a minimum.
Q: Briefly, how does your instant language translation technology work?
A: Our number-one focus is on ensuring that the meaning has been correctly communicated. To achieve this, we combine both statistical and rule-based translation engines to generate the desired output. This approach is used for both capturing the input data and in generating the translation output.
Q: Why did you develop the Endurance Tablet PC along with your other products?
A: The Compadre suite runs on almost any computer that uses Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system. So, if you have legacy equipment that you want to continue to use, that’s fine. As I previously mentioned, our goal is to develop a complete solution for instant language translation. As the software was being used in the initial field trials, it became obvious that existing computers were not designed for instant translation. Two examples of shortcomings were poor-quality microphones and audio speakers. The Endurance is a ruggedized, all-purpose PC that was designed to overcome these and many additional shortcomings. With the Endurance, we can offer our customers a complete turnkey solution for their instant translation needs. ♦
