Microsoft Translating Telephone FAIL (VIDEO)

• This is not a FAIL at all. I'm no MS fan, but the software did quite a nice job, especially considering, as Andrew points out, the level of background noise. I don't know if you've seen Google Voice's transcription of spoken English to text, but it's nowhere near this accurate. "FAIL" implies that something went very wrong, and that it was funny enough that I should watch 3 minutes of video to get to it. For example, if the man said in German, "I have been working for Microsoft for nine years," and the software translated it as, "You shall caress the goat tenderly before making sweet love to it." Or at least someone should get punched in the face.

• It's a FAIL because FAIL means something different now. It doesn't mean Microsoft's entire project is a failure -- I obviously don't believe that given what I wrote below. It's just a convenient shorthand for letting a web-savvy reader know that they're about to watch a video in which something goes wrong.

• Why is this a "FAIL"? Seems the translations are about 90% accurate, even with the demo being held in a loud, packed room. Like he said, there are a few major areas for mistakes, speech->text, text->text, text->speech. I'm already impressed despite further development going into it, can't wait for the finished product!

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