Tag: mobile technology

Skype and Microsoft Research collaboration has resulted in major technological advancement in telecommunication.

Microsoft has recently made technology news by revealing a new translation service for the freemium VoIP (voice over IP) and messaging app Skype, which has the ability to identify spoken words and translate these words into a different language and, in almost real-time, speak back the translation.

After 15 years of research Microsoft intends to launch the new service by the end of the year.

Presently, Skype has an estimated 300 million monthly users who utilize its service via smartphones, tablets, computers and television. At the end of 2014, Skype Translator will be available for Windows 8. However, Microsoft also has the intention to make it available to other operating platforms in the future.

Skype’s corporate vice president, Gurdeep Singh Pall, said “Skype has always been about breaking down barriers. And the language barrier is huge. It has been a blocker to productivity and human connection.” He went on to say that “Skype Translator helps us overcome this barrier. It’s going to make sure you can communicate with anyone without language barriers.”

The technology was demonstrated by Pall in California at the Code conference. He held a three minute conversation with one of his German colleagues via a Skype video call. Pall spoke in English and his words were translated into German while his colleague spoke in German and Pall and the audience heard the German to English translation in almost real-time.

There were a few mistakes during the conversation, but these were extremely minor compared to those that occurred when the service was first demonstrated two years ago, translating English to Chinese. This shows the technological improvements that have been made in such a short time.

Microsoft’s technology news could preserve Skype’s competitive edge.

Skype was acquired by Microsoft back in 2011 for $85 billion. Globally, Skype continues to be the most used video and voice chat. However, it has a lot of competition from other popular messaging services like WhatsApp, FaceTime and Hangouts. The translation feature could be what allows Skype to keep a leg up over its competitors.

It is likely that there will be more Skype-related technology news in the future as more advancement are made and because Microsoft has yet to announce if the new translator service will be free or not.

Tests performed by Rx Networks Inc. and the European GNSS Agency (GSA) have confirmed it.

In a joint effort, a mobile location based service and technology company, Rx Networks Inc. and the GSA have tested the performance of Galileo with respect to its use when combined with GLONASS and GPS and have now released a report that reveals the outcomes of those tests and their measurements.

The tests conducted by the organizations were conducted within real world environments.

These included in indoor environments as well as in urban canyons. These types of environment traditionally pose considerable challenges to location based service accuracy as a result of the obstructions that they present to satellites, as well as because of multipath views. Each of the tests that were conducted were made up of a data capture of GNSS signals that ran for three hours. This was replayed later on in order to generate hundreds of fixes through the use of a STMicroelectronics multi-constellation GNSS receiver.

What it found was that location based service fixes were notably better with Galileo.

When Galileo was used in combination with one or more additional GNSS constellations, then there is a considerable improvement to the accuracy of location fixes when compared to the results obtained through the use of GPS on its own. This was particularly true in urban canyons and indoors.

At the same time, combining GPS and Galileo did not provide better results than combining GPS and GLONASS, but this was expected as there were only four Galileo satellites available to the testers at that time. The prediction of the researchers is that as the number of Galileo satellite launches increases, the combinations between GPS and Galileo will be able to offer a greater improvement in performance.

The GSA head of market development, Gian-Gherado Calini discussed this location based service accuracy performance test and said that “Dual-constellation GNSS designs are the standard for many smartphones and other devices. The combination of GPS and Galileo provides a robust solution and is expected to offer performance that will meet or exceed end-user expectations.” The Rx Networks senior vice president of sales and marketing, Adrian Stimpson, added that GNSS chipset manufacturers should feel that the results are “encouraging”.