Google Translate will be getting real time speech translation

The preview version of Skype’s real time translator went live last month, and it’s now clear that Google isn’t willing to let Microsoft claim the glory of having a digital Babel Fish by itself.

According to The New York Times, a future version of Google Translate will start translating speech in real time, displaying it as text on the screen of whichever device you’re using.

The report from The New York Times also reiterated that Google Translate will soon include a feature that translates foreign text on screen, something we originally mentioned in early December.

Of course Skype’s main draw is that it will translate speech to speech in real time, and limited as it may be right now it has the potential to be a lot more useful. That being said, having real-time speech-to-text on Google Translate is certainly another step in the right direction.

I imagine Google will implement speech-to-speech translation sometime in the near future, and who knows maybe we’ll end up with translating earpieces one day.