The fall of language barriers

21

October

2017

No ratings yet.

Last year, Hilary Clinton’s former innovation adviser Alec Ross wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal about being language barriers soon to be history. He stated that “By 2025 when someone speaks to you in a foreign language, an earpiece will be able instantly to translate their words into your native language”. Ross also wrote that machines will grow exponentially more accurate and be able to fill in the communication gaps in areas including pronunciation and interpreting a spoken response.

Most recent developments on Ross’ prediction might be the Google Pixel Buds. The wireless earbuds are an alternative to Apple’s pioneering AirPods. The most interesting feature of the earbuds is the universal translator, “Star Trek” style as the company calls it themselves. As you speak into the Pixel Buds, your words get translated and spoken aloud by your phone in another language. Google claims that this feature works with over 40 languages. For now, the feature is only available for Pixel 2 phones, however, the feature will soon be available for other phones too.

However, communication is only one of the many advantages of learning another language and probably not the most important one. Studies show that beneficial advantages are including increasing creativity, increasing confidence and makes you become smarter.

While it’s undeniable that translation tools like Bing Translator, Google Translate, or Babelfish have improved dramatically in recent years, prognosticators like Ross could be getting ahead of themselves. An increase in the quantity and accuracy of the data logged into computers should make them more capable of advanced translating, however, many tools (like Google Translate) still perform way worse than traditional translators, stumbling on what seems like easy translations.

We can assign this to the fundamental difference between programming and language. Programming is a conducted, formal language, while languages are natural and breathing, which rely on the social convention as on syntactic, phonetic, or semantic rules. Translation is difficult for computers because translating words, sentences or paragraphs is only part of the process. The most important aspect is translating meaning.

So will technology someday replace human translators and interpreters? I don’t think that this will be realized in the near future. Language barriers felt a long time ago when professional translators and interpreters have been facilitating multilingual communication for decades. Unless developers find a way to breathe a soul into computers, the “high-tech earpiece” will not be able to replace human intervention. The technology should for now be seen as a way to help to deal with scarce resources of translators and to speed up their work by, for example, automatically replacing strings of texts which have been already translated. 

Sources

https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2016/0468/BillText/e1/HTML

https://newrepublic.com/article/132148/language-barrier-actually-fall-within-next-10-years

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/language-barriers-may-be-consigned-to-history-by-this-gadget-a6872051.html

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/advantages-of-learning-a-foreign-language/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-language-barrier-is-about-to-fall-1454077968

http://www.jpost.com/Business/Business-Features/For-artificial-intelligence-pioneer-Marvin-Minsky-computers-have-soul-352076

https://www.businessinsider.nl/google-pixel-buds-wireless-headphones-hands-on-photos-2017-10/?international=true&r=US

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/10/google-pixel-buds-are-wireless-earbuds-that-translate-conversations-in-real-time/

Please rate this

Amazon: Mass Disruptor of the 21 Century

17

October

2017

No ratings yet.

When Amazon was founded in 1994 by Jeffrey Bezos, the company was nothing more than an online retailer of books organized from Bezos’ garage. Today, Amazon is the world’s largest online retailer selling much more than only books, with a remarkable reputation for being a “mass disruptor of industries”. So how does the company disrupt industry after industry? And which companies become Amazon’s next victims?

Within the last nine months alone, Amazon had announced dozens of new services and business expansions that have attacked major players in half a dozen industries.

Last June, Amazon acquired Whole Foods for $13.7 billion dollars. Despite the fact that the overall market share of Whole Foods in the grocery business is a small two percent, the effect on not only food retailers but also retailers of other goods can be large when Amazon decides to turn the roughly 400 stores into distribution hubs. Besides the Whole Food stores, Amazon has been opening physical bookstores, turning the retail industry on its head. These expansions show that Amazon does not necessarily eschew the idea of having physical stores.

But Amazon’s plans do not stop here. Bezos’s strategy of continuous evolution suggest that the company is ready to disrupt also other industries. Wall Street analysts speculate that with the acquisition of Whole Foods, the grocery chain might soon house pharmacy locations and threat all parts of the pharmaceutical supply chain, including drug makers.

Also the payments industry is not safe. Over the years, Amazon has been expanding its presence in digital payments. With the introduction of a one-click checkout, Amazon enhances the ease of payments on its website by saving the customers’ preferred payment details. Another feature is Amazon Pay Places, where users can order ahead and pay for goods in-store via the Amazon App. Besides that, Amazon introduced a service that enables customers to add cash to their Amazon accounts at select brick-and-mortar stores, which is comparable to depositing cash at a bank. Finally, Amazon offers traditional banking services, such as loans, which are becoming increasingly popular.

Amazon’s latest developments and its innovative approaches to transform how the marketplace delivers product sends a warning to companies: it is a matter of when Amazon gets into your business, not if.     

Sources:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-amazon-getting-into-the-pharmacy-business-this-is-what-you-need-to-know-2017-10-09

http://time.com/money/4868145/amazon-disrupts-industries/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bisnow/2017/07/21/a-dozen-disruptions-amazons-pursuit-of-massive-market-share-in-12-major-industries/#3de95aff1ebe

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4083034-just-amazon-mass-disruption-retail

http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-has-big-plans-to-disrupt-the-payments-industry-2017-7?international=true&r=US&IR=T

Please rate this