Microsoft announces updated Microsoft Translator API with real-time speech-to-speech translation support

Microsoft yesterday announced a new version of Microsoft Translator API with support for real-time speech-to-speech (and speech to text) translation capabilities. This is the same API which Microsoft Skype team users for Skype Translator services and now, businesses will be able to add these speech translation capabilities to their applications or services. At start, it is is available for eight languages — Arabic, Chinese Mandarin, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Translation to text is available in all of Microsoft Translator’s 50+ supported languages. Translation to spoken audio is available in 18 supported languages.

This new version of Microsoft Translator is the first end-to-end speech translation solution optimized for real-life conversations (vs. simple human to machine commands) available on the market. Before today, speech translation solutions needed to be cobbled together from a number of different APIs (speech recognition, translation, and speech synthesis), were not optimized for conversational speech or designed to work with each other. Now, end users and businesses alike can remove language barriers with the integration of speech translation in their familiar apps and services.

A free 2 hour trial is available at aka.ms/TranslatorADMSpeech.