Amazon Echo: Alexa now interprets and translates your conversations in real time
At Authôt, we attach great importance to the accessibility of content internationally. With our subtitling and translation service this is one of our specialties. Furthermore, with our latest platform, Authôt Live, you can now translate your Lives in real time. All high-tech companies are doing it. So today, we’re going to look at what’s new in Amazon Echo and Alexa from Amazon. Indeed, after having reviewed Authôt Live 2020, having talked about the freelance translator profession and the machine translation offered by Facebook’s AI, we continue our work. Alexa is no longer a simple voice and virtual assistant. She also acts as an interpreter and translates your conversations in real time, directly.
Amazon and the Alexa voice assistant
To begin, let’s briefly recall what Alexa Amazon is all about. Alexa is the keyword used to request the personal voice assistant developed by Amazon’s Lab126. This voice assistant has become popular thanks to the Amazon Echo connected speakers.
Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos, Amazon is an American e-commerce company. It is headquartered in Seattle. Amazon is one of the giants of the Web – the GAFAM – along with Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft.
Thanks to the development of its technologies, Amazon goes much further than the « simple » field of e-commerce.
Amazon Echo: its assistant Alexa translates in real time
Amazon seeks to meet all types of user needs, directly by voice, through their speakers. Indeed, within the Amazon Echo connected speaker, Alexa now acts as an interpreter and translates your conversations in real time!
Thanks to the central artificial intelligence and operation of Amazon Echo speakers, language barriers are reduced in real time. With a simple voice command. Amazon’s real-time translation feature saves time for people with different languages who want to communicate directly with each other.
Alexa is your new interpreter, translator! She translates conversations in both directions.
No need to go and get a dictionary, no need to go and type a translation to be done by Google… This not only saves time and efficiency but also allows people with motor disabilities to communicate, for example.
Amazon Echo and Alexa: your new live translators
So how does this live translation system work? Simply ask Alexa to start the translation process. Once started, you choose two languages. You will then take turns speaking sentences aloud.
Alexa automatically identifies the spoken language and is able to translate it into the other language on its own.
In concrete terms, this new live translation feature for Alexa and Amazon Echo uses several of Amazon’s internal technologies:
- Alexa’s text-to-speech system.
- Amazon translate – a machine translation service based on deep learning.
- An automatic speech recognition system.
The combination of these three technologies is key to Alexa’s development as a real-time interpreter!
Translate your conversations in real time
Thanks to parallel advances in similar technologies, translating your conversations in real time, live, without waiting, without searching is much more than a reality! Alexa is far from being the first in the industry. Google has also launched a live translation system. Just like with Alexa, the Google Assistant is able to translate your conversation.
Whereas before Google Translation was only accessible manually on cell phones, now everything is done without contact.
According to papergeek.fr, in recent years, technology companies have made great progress with automatic speech recognition systems. Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri or Cortana can now understand more than 90% of what you tell them. Beware, GAFAM technology is not yet 100% infallible!
Live translation: the new possibilities of Alexa from Amazon
In fact, with Alexa, Amazon added live translation of conversations through its Echo connected speaker. However, this is currently only available for « American » Echo speakers. In fact, the « Live Translation » feature is currently only available for Amazon Echo speakers with a US English configuration.
Currently, this feature – Alexa interpreter– is only available on Amazon Echo devices with US English language settings. In fact, you don’t need to reside in the United States to enjoy it, but the Echo speaker’s base language must be set to US English. Nevertheless, don’t panic, a recent Alexa update indicates that it already brings the multilingual mode to France – for both English and French.
In addition, according to phoneandroid.com, with a « device like the Echo Show, a visual translation can be added to the audio translation”.
In the U.S., from English, the Live Translation feature with Alexa is compatible with six pairs of foreign languages :
- Spanish;
- French;
- German;
- Italian;
- Portuguese;
- Brazilian ;
- Hindi.
For many medias, this is only the beginning! In addition to using Alexa without touching her smartphone or a device, Amazon wants to integrate it into almost all electrical devices. And always in this approach, the goal is that eventually Alexa anticipates your needs, that she anticipates your questions, before you even ask them.
In addition, according to tomsguide.fr, for the Echo speakers that « do not have a screen, Alexa will verbally translate all messages from each speaker”.
Google Assistant and Alexa: Competing for Live Translation
Finally, Google Assistant and Alexa with their similar functionalities are in competition. Each has its own little specificities. For example, Google helps you translate live on compatible headsets, even if you’re not at home. What’s more, when it was launched, the tool was already compatible with more than 27 different modern languages.
And in between and with other features, there is our Authôt Live platform… Available online now!
As for Authôt Live, it is available in about 15 languages. Thanks to this complete solution to make its contents accessible to all, not only do you have live translation, but also subtitles and transcription at your convenience, in just a few clicks!
In short, via Amazon Echo, Alexa’s voice assistant now also serves as an interpreter and translates your conversations in real time! However, this is far from being the only tool that does the translation work live today!
To benefit from our expertise and live transcription and translation tools, please contact our team!
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