"In the current conflict (in Iraq), (American) military personnel will have to rely on human interpreters and weathered pocket dictionaries to communicate with refugees, wounded civilians, prisoners and combatants," Wired News reports. But in a year or so, U.S. troops may get a hand-held device, "Interact," that will let them be heard in Arabic.
Speak one of a number of key English phrases into Interact -- "where does it hurt?" "ID, please" -- and the device "spits out an audio translation with just a two-second delay and no need for the speaker to pause," according to Wired News.
"Interact" is far from perfect -- voice recognition is one of the most inexact of arts. Both people have to be willing to talk, and background noise will screw up an interpretation.
But after a demonstration for military brass last week, 'we had to pry our demo model out of their hands,' the CEO of Interact's maker, SpeechGear, says.
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