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It is pieces of the puzzle really. You need machine learning, computer vision, robotics and ultimately AI plus some kind of self-assembling machines to really m

It is pieces of the puzzle really. You need machine learning, computer vision, robotics and ultimately AI plus some kind of self-assembling machines to really make it work. We don't have the tech yet. But it is getting there. Being able to find the translation of a spoken phrase, or answer a spoken question accurately is actually difficult. You pretty much need your phone to be aware of the environment; if you want to get good results that is. So projects like Siri, Google Now or Glass are actually important and potentially can be crucial and 'world changing'.

rayiner 13y ago
Except it's e.g. SRI doing the "world changing" part of Siri.
enraged_camel 13y ago
>>Being able to find the translation of a spoken phrase, or answer a spoken question accurately is actually difficult. I guess what I'm trying to say is that every world-changing problem is difficult to solve, but not every difficult problem is world-changing when solved. I have no doubt that Google engineers overcame countless challenges that would fry the brains of most people here. Does that mean the solutions they produced changed the world? No. Rather, they ended up as products and features in Google's massive advertising machine. You mentioned other projects. Let's take Google Glass. It is quite promising. But let's face it: at the end of the day, it will be yet another means of showing people ads. They will be more accurate ads perhaps, since Google will know exactly where you are and what you are looking at - but they will still be ads.
ryanmolden 13y ago
I actually saw a demo of live conversation translation between two speakers (Chinese and English) using cell phones, at a Microsoft tech fest a few (2?) years ago. Something from MSR, obviously not on the market yet, so not quite there, but there are lots of people trying to bring the star trek universal translators to life :)

rayiner 13y ago

Except it's e.g. SRI doing the "world changing" part of Siri.

enraged_camel 13y ago

>>Being able to find the translation of a spoken phrase, or answer a spoken question accurately is actually difficult. I guess what I'm trying to say is that every world-changing problem is difficult to solve, but not every difficult problem is world-changing when solved. I have no doubt that Google engineers overcame countless challenges that would fry the brains of most people here. Does that mean the solutions they produced changed the world? No. Rather, they ended up as products and features in Google's massive advertising machine. You mentioned other projects. Let's take Google Glass. It is quite promising. But let's face it: at the end of the day, it will be yet another means of showing people ads. They will be more accurate ads perhaps, since Google will know exactly where you are and what you are looking at - but they will still be ads.

ryanmolden 13y ago

I actually saw a demo of live conversation translation between two speakers (Chinese and English) using cell phones, at a Microsoft tech fest a few (2?) years ago. Something from MSR, obviously not on the market yet, so not quite there, but there are lots of people trying to bring the star trek universal translators to life :)