What you need to know

• Microsoft Translator Pro is a new application that is designed to "dismantle language barriers in the workplace."
• The app supports real-time translation and simultaneous real-time transcription.
• Speech-to-speech translation runs on-device and does not require an internet connection.
• Microsoft Translator Pro is in public preview but is currently limited to iOS.

A new app from Microsoft aims to "dismantle language barriers in the workplace." Microsoft Translator Pro, which is now available in public preview on iOS, supports speech-to-speech translation in real time. The app can also show a transcript while translating speech to speech. Microsoft announced the app this week and shared an example of it in use on an Azure AI services blog.

Microsoft Translator Pro is a paid app that's available on the commercial cloud platform. If you are an enterprise customer, you can fill out a form to request access to Microsoft Translator Pro.

Microsoft outlined the core features of Microsoft Translator Pro in a support document:

• Eliminate language barriers. Real-time speech-to-speech translation allows seamless communication between individuals speaking different languages.
• Unified efficient experience. Both transcription and translation can be viewed or heard simultaneously on a single device, ensuring smooth and efficient conversations.
• Offline usage capability. The app's speech-to-speech translation capability can be utilized without an internet connection in limited languages, maintaining productivity without interruption.
• Full administrator control. Your enterprise IT administrator has extensive control over the app's deployment and usage within your organization. Administrators can fine-tune settings to manage conversation history, audit trails, and diagnostic logs. Additionally, administrators have the ability to disable history or configure the automatic exportation of the history to cloud storage.
• Enterprise-grade security. Microsoft Translator Pro ensures exceptional translation quality paired with robust security features. Recognizing that privacy and security are paramount for your organization, administrators can sign in to the app using organizational credentials. Your organization's conversational data remains entirely protected within your Azure tenant. Not Microsoft or any third parties can access your data.

Enterprise-grade security and full admin control make Microsoft Translator Pro stand out from its non-pro counterpart. Organizations are likely hesitant to have entire conversations recorded by apps built for general consumers. The enterprise focus of Microsoft Translator Pro makes the app usable within professional environments.

Translation is a major focus of Microsoft's these days. The tech giant announced several new translation features for Teams earlier this week at Ignite 2024. Real-time translation helps improve accessibility and communication, both of which are priorities for Microsoft.

Translation technology has come a long way over the last decade. I remember testing Skype Translator when it was in beta in 2015. Back then, real-time translation was choppy and did not feel native. Of course, it was in beta back then, so that was to be expected. While translator tech cannot replace a human interpreter, even in 2024, the technology has improved dramatically and is usable in real-world situations.

Why is Microsoft Translator Pro exclusive to iOS?

Microsoft did not share why Microsoft Translator Pro is only available on iOS. It is normal for developers to work on an iOS app before an Android one because of the unified nature of Apple's mobile platform. That being said, an app designed to improve communication and accessibility should be available on all major mobile platforms. Hopefully, Microsoft will release an Android app after Microsoft Translator Pro makes it through public preview.

I thought for a moment that the feature may require Apple Intelligence, which would explain its exclusivity to iOS, but that does not appear to be the case. Microsoft Translator Pro only requires a device to be on iOS 15 or newer, while Apple Intelligence requires iOS 18.1 or newer.

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What you need to know

• Two more languages have made their way to Microsoft Translator.
• They are Galician and Basque.
• Microsoft has also reiterated its commitment to preserving endangered languages.

Animal species aren't the only thing going extinct these days; languages are also dying off. And that's why Microsoft's committed to ensuring that Translator preserves as many of them as possible. As such, expect more and more additions to come Translator's way.

Most recently, Galician and Basque are headed to the service. In its announcement of the news, Microsoft included some trivia about the pair of tongues for those not familiar with their origins: "Basque is a language isolate, meaning it is not related to any other modern language. Basque is spoken in northern Spain and southern France in a region that straddles the Pyrenees Mountains. Galician is spoken in northern Portugal and western Spain. It is a Romance language that is closely related to Portuguese. Both languages are co-official languages of Spain."

Not too long ago, Microsoft also added Zulu and Somali. And in its latest announcement, it touted some of the endangered languages it's taken part in preserving, which include Māori, Inuktitut, and Yucatec Maya.

The company has a form you can fill out right here if you have a language in need of preservation.

Translator's journey isn't restricted to adding and preserving languages. It's also enhancing translations for what's already in its roster thanks to new and upgraded AI models Microsoft's developing to keep Azure Cognitive Services on the cutting edge. What that means is that in both the present and future, you can expect common languages such as English and French to more accurately convert to each other.

What you need to know

• Microsoft Translator and the Azure tech powering it are getting upgrades.
• In this instance, Translator is expanding the range of languages it supports.
• You can now use the app for the Zulu and Somali languages.

Not every translation app is going to support the language you need help with, meaning you may be out of luck if you're looking for one of the less common tongues out there. That's a problem Microsoft Translator is attempting to remedy, bit by bit, with updates and upgrades. The newest of said updates includes support for Somali and Zulu languages.

Microsoft's blog post announcing the new inclusions also features some trivia to educate yourself with, if you're in the mood to learn a little something about the two languages being added to Translator.

"The Zulu language is spoken by 12 million people in South Africa and neighboring countries," the post reads. "The Zulu language is in the Bantu language family, related to languages such as Swahili and Xhosa." It's also one of the 11 official languages of South Africa.

As for Somali, Microsoft has lore to share on that one, too. "The Somali language is spoken throughout the horn of Africa by more than 21 million people in Somalia, Somaliland, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and northern Kenya," says the post. "The language is in the Cushitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family. It is related to languages such as Oromo, Afar, and Hadiyya."

Translator's upgrades aren't a surprise given that Microsoft is doubling down on its commitment to Azure AI and artificial intelligence model progress. Translator is just a small example of what's benefiting from Microsoft leveling up Azure and the multitude of products it powers. For example, check out the newly launched ID@Azure program.

What you need to know

• Microsoft has released a blog post detailing the AI models powering its latest innovations for Translator and Azure AI.
• These new models utilize NVIDIA GPUs, which segues into Microsoft's other recent news about collaborating with NVIDIA.
• The new models are helping to improve Translator's translation quality, leading to better outputs of varying degrees depending on the languages involved.

Microsoft's utilizing a new family of AI models dubbed Z-code, which provides the quality and performance of large-scale language models with the added benefit of greater efficiency.

"With Z-code we are really making amazing progress because we are leveraging both transfer learning and multitask learning from monolingual and multilingual data to create a state-of-the-art language model that we believe has the best combination of quality, performance and efficiency that we can provide to our customers," said Xuedong Huang, Microsoft technical fellow and Azure AI chief technology officer.

Part of what makes Z-code special is its ability to derive solutions from model portions rather than the entire thing, which makes Z-code usage scalable and efficient. It's being utilized within Azure AI via the Microsoft Translator app, wherein it's helping expand the capabilities of Translator for less common languages and helping improve results of even the most common translation requests for popular languages such as English and French.

For specific numbers on how the model family is helping Microsoft, here are hard figures the company provided regarding Z-code's effects on translation: "The models improved English to French translations by 3.2 %, English to Turkish by 5.8 %, Japanese to English by 7.6%, English to Arabic by 9.3% and English to Slovenian by 15%."

In other words, should you want to translate anything to or from English, the odds are Z-code is going to help that process. For more technical details on AI models, check out Microsoft's blog posts on the subject. And if you want to know more about the NVIDIA GPUs helping power these innovations, there's news on that too.

What you need to know

• Microsoft's Translator now supports over 100 languages and dialects.
• Recently, 12 new languages and dialects were added to Translator.
• In addition to languages spoken by a large number of people, Translator supports low-resource and endangered languages like Inuktitut.

Microsoft's Translator now supports over 100 languages and dialects. The service recently gained support for 12 new dialects and languages: Bashkir, Dhivehi, Georgian, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian (Cyrillic), Mongolian (Traditional), Tatar, Tibetan, Turkmen, Uyghur, and Uzbek (Latin). Those newly supported languages are collectively spoken by 84.6 million people. With support for over 100 languages, Translator can help text and documents be accessed by 5.66 billion people.

Translator supports commonly spoken languages, including English, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish, and several languages from China. Microsoft has also spent several years improving AI technology to support low-resource and endangered languages, such as Inuktitut, which is a dialect of Inuktut that is spoken by around 40,000 Inuit in Canada.

Microsoft's blog post announcing the newly supported languages highlights how Translator is used by several organizations.

"Thousands of organizations have turned to Translator to communicate with their members, employees and clients around the world," explains Microsoft. "The Volkswagen Group, for example, is using the machine translation technology to serve its customers in more than 60 languages. The workload involves translating more than 1 billion words each year."

Volkswagen has also used features that allow it to fine-tune translation with industry-specific terms.

Microsoft explains how its AI model called Z-code combines several languages from a language family to improve translation. For example, Romanian translations were improved when the AI model was trained with French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian data.

Translator is available in Microsoft's Translator apps, Office, and Translator for Bing. Azure Cognitive Services Translator and Azure Cognitive Services Speech also work with the newly supported languages.

What you need to know

• Microsoft Translator just received a useful update.
• It now supports accent selection via Speech Regions.
• This will allow you to hear specific variations of a language.

Tired of hearing American English when what you're really after is Australian English since the two are completely different (don't believe me? Say "rise up lights" in American English. You just said "razor blades" in Australian English.)? Microsoft Translator understands your frustrations and has released an update to address that very concern!

"Today we are adding regional accents to the Microsoft Translator app on iOS and Android," Microsoft's blog post reads. "Known as Speech Regions, you can now select the accent of text-to-speech audio output you would like to hear while using the app."

Much like the Australian/American example listed above, Microsoft's blog post delves into the difference between Spain's Spanish and Mexico's Spanish and how regional accents can drastically change the experience of hearing a language. Now, when you want to hear your translation, you can select which accent you get, allowing for an optimal translating experience.

Microsoft has provided steps for how to access the new feature:

1. Select the language of your choice, the example below uses Spanish
2. Select "Speech Region"
3. Choose the region
4. Choose from the available voices from that region

Microsoft Translator's also been updated to more easily reflect which languages are supported for the app's various features. If either of these two items were something you were waiting for MS Translator to include, now's the time to jump back into the app.

What you need to know

• Microsoft Translator now supports nine additional languages for text translation.
• The newly supported languages are Albanian, Amharic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Khmer, Lao, Myanmar, Nepali, and Tigrinya.
• Several Microsoft apps and services now also support these new languages, including Office and Translator for Bing.

Microsoft Translator and several Microsoft services recently gained support for nine additional languages. Microsoft announced text translation support of Albanian, Amharic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Khmer, Lao, Myanmar, Nepali, and Tigrinya in a blog post. By adding support for these languages, Microsoft Translator can help more than 170 million more people communicate.

With the addition of these nine languages, Microsoft Translator can now translate text to or from a total of 83 languages.

The newly supported languages aren't just available within the Microsoft Translator apps, which are on iOS, Android, and Windows 10. They're also available in Microsoft Office and Translator for Bing. Developers can also use these languages within Translator, an Azure Cognitive Service. Microsoft also supports the nine new languages with its Azure Cognitive Services for speech-to-text translations.

Microsoft's announcement of the newly supported languages comes only a couple of days after International Mother Language Day, which aims to "promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by peoples of the world," according to the UN.

Text translation support for these languages can help create new opportunities for people to communicate across language barriers. The nine newly supported languages are spoken by more than 170 million people around the world.

What you need to know

• Microsoft's latest holiday ad features Microsoft Translator.
• Microsoft Translator currently supports over 60 languages.
• Reindeer is not a supported language of Microsoft Translator.

A new holiday ad from Microsoft shows off the power of Microsoft Translator. At the beginning of the ad, a mother speaks with a group of people speaking Japanese through the power of Microsoft Translator. Inspired by her mother, a young girl in the commercial runs outside to speak with reindeer using the technology.

In the ad, the girl confirms that the reindeer can understand her and peppers the reindeer with a series of questions about the holidays and Mrs. Claus. Unfortunately, the ability to speak to animals is merely fictional and is not supported in Microsoft Translator at this time. It can, however, allow you to communicate with people in over 60 human languages.

In addition to the standalone Microsoft Translator app, Microsoft has built-in translation tools in Skype. You can type or speak with people in one language and have your words instantly translated into another language.

Black Friday buyer's guide: Windows 10 laptops

After rolling out some AI-powered goodness to its Android and iOS Translator apps in mid-April, Microsoft is now turning its attention to the Windows version. The company has shipped a pretty major update to the Translator app for Windows 10 that includes Cortana integration, Windows Ink support, and much more (via MSPU).

The addition of Cortana integration means that you can use Microsoft's digital assistant to either start or join a conversation in supported languages. All you have to do is use phrases like "Hey Cortana, start a conversation in Translator," or "Hey Cortana, ask Translator to start a conversation." The feature is supported in Chinese Simplified, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese.

With Windows Ink support, you can now write out text with your mouse or, on devices that support touch, a stylus, and have it translated. That's in addition to new offline language packs that give you access to neural network-powered translations when you don't have an internet connection. The update also packs in a phrasebook and dictionary that includes more than 200 "essential phrases and words," Microsoft says. These can be saved so you can access commonly used phrases from your Favorites list.

Lastly, the new "Live conversations" feature lets you join and participate in multilingual conversations across multiple devices. This feature is built for either one-on-one or group conversations and works by sharing a "conversation code" with people that you'd like to speak with. From there, you can speak or use the keyboard on your device and your words will be translated to the languages of the other participants on their devices.

All of the new features are available to check out now in Microsoft Translator version 5.2.0.0 on the Microsoft Store.

See at Microsoft Store

Microsoft is making its Translator apps even more useful when you don't have an internet connection, thanks to a little AI help. The tech giant announced today that the Microsoft Translator app on Android, iOS, and Amazon Fire devices now feature offline AI-powered translations, boosting their accuracy through the use of new offline language packs.

Microsoft first rolled out online AI-powered neural machine translation (NMT) in 2016 before adding the same capability to Android phones with dedicated AI chips in 2017. Now, Microsoft says the team behind its Translator apps was able to tweak its algorithms to work directly on any device's hardware.

"Building on this initial work, the Translator team was able to further optimize these algorithms, allowing them to run directly on any modern device's CPU without the need for a dedicated AI chip," Microsoft says. "The new Translator apps now bring NMT to the edge of the cloud for all Android, iOS*, and Amazon Fire devices." Windows devices are also expected to get support for AI offline translations soon.

The updated language packs are available for Arabic, Chinese Simplified, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Thai. More languages are planned to support offline AI-powered translations soon, but Microsoft is already promising the updated packs are up to 50 percent smaller while offering translations that are up to 23 percent better.

Aside from the new packs, Microsoft revealed that Android developers can now take advantage of these offline capabilities in their own apps. Third-party apps can take advantage of a new local feature that allows them to tap into Translator, relying on its offline capabilities to serve up translations without an internet connection, or retrieving the translation from the cloud when connected. The feature is currently in preview and is expected to launch in general availability in the coming months. If you're a developer, you can learn more at GitHub.

• See at Google Play
• See at the App Store

Microsoft has slowly been growing the list of languages supported by its text to speech function in Microsoft Translator, which lets you play translated text in its native accent. This week, that list grew a bit more, with six new languages joining the fray. That brings the total number of supported text to speech languages to 36.

Here's a look at what's new:

• Bulgarian
• Croatian
• Malay
• Slovenian
• Tamil
• Vietnamese

Text to speech can come in handy if you're learning how to pronounce words, or if you're traveling to a new country and need to ask for directions or some other sort of assistance. All you have to do is type a word or phrase in your language to have it translated to the target language, then press the speaker button to have the translated text played out loud in its native accent.

According to Microsoft, the six new languages are available now in the Translator app for Android, as well as the Microsoft Translator Text and Speech APIs. Support for the new languages is expected to come to the Translator app for iOS, Microsoft Translator live, and Translator for Bing "soon," Microsoft says.

• See at Google Play
• See at the App Store
• See at Microsoft Store

If you're still using the Microsoft Translator app on an older Windows machine or device, you'll want to upgrade or find an alternative soon. Microsoft has announced (via OnMSFT) that Translator will soon stop working on Windows 8, Windows Phone 7.1 and Windows Phone 8.

According to Microsoft, the Translator app will be removed from the Store for the affected platforms on March 22. If you already have the app installed, however, you'll be able to continue using it through April 30, at which point it will stop working.

While that's bad news for anyone still holding on to an older device, the good news is that Translator will continue to be supported for anyone on Windows 8.1 or Windows Phone 8.1. Microsoft says an update will roll out to the app on those platforms soon. And of course, anyone on Windows 10 or Windows 10 Mobile remains unaffected.

Download Translator from the Windows Store

Alongside a slew of AI-related announcements, Microsoft revealed that its Translator service can now handle multi-lingual group conversations in real time. Now Translator can help foster greater communication by enabling people to speak face-to-face with multiple languages, understanding one another as the conversation happens.

From Microsoft:

Right now, real-time translation is only available in 9 different spoken languages, but more than 50 are supported when typing. However, Microsoft boasts that in-person translation can support up to 100 different speakers in real time, which is pretty darn impressive. If you'd like to try out the feature, it should be available to test online at the Translator website as well as the various Translator mobile apps.

Thanks, Vasrias, for the tip!

Download Microsoft's Translator for Windows 10 PC and Mobile

Microsoft's Translator service will soon support translating multi-lingual group conversations in real time. As reported by ZDNet, Microsoft demoed an early version of the feature on stage at its Future Decoded event in London.

During the demo, Microsoft showed Translator handling a conversation between three people conducted in French, English and German in real time. As the conversation played out, each person saw a real-time text translation of what was being said via a phone app. From ZDNet:

While still a prototype, Microsoft is hoping to release a preview version of the new app by the end of the year. At that time, the translator service is planned to support 9 spoken languages and 60 for text. Given the fact that translator only supports conversations between two speakers at the moment, that's pretty impressive.

It's expected the improved Translator features will come to Skype, as well as Microsoft's apps on Android, iOS and Windows.

Download Microsoft's Translator for Windows 10 PC and Mobile

The various apps and services that use Microsoft Translator can now support translating text in Cantonese, bringing another language used primarily in China to the company's list of over 50 supported languages.

In a blog post, Microsoft stated:

There are a number of Microsoft Translator apps for various platforms including Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile. The company's translator services are also integrated into Skype for Windows desktop users, along with Bing, Office, Cortana and other products and services.

Download Microsoft Translator for Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile

Microsoft has added text support for the Afrikaans language to all versions of its Translator apps, including the one for Windows 10 on PC and Mobile.

In a blog post, Microsoft stated:

In addition to its dedicated Translator apps, the new Afrikaans language support has been added to the Skype translator feature for Windows on the desktop.

Download Microsoft Translator for Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile

If you are using Windows 10 and French, German, Italian, or Spanish is the localized language, you can now use Cortana to instantly translate words and phrases. This is due to a new feature from the Microsoft Translator team.

In a blog post, Microsoft stated:

On the off chance Cortana cannot provide a translation, or if it misunderstands a request, it will perform a search and then bring up a web page with a possible solution.

The speech translation features that were developed for the Windows desktop version of Skype and the iOS and Android versions of Microsoft Translator are now available for third-party app developers. An updated version of the Microsoft Translator API is now available with the tools needed to add the speech-to-speech features to third-party apps

Microsoft stated:

Download the new version of Microsoft Translator API{.cta .large}

If you are traveling abroad and don't speak the local language, you don't need a phrasebook anymore — you need Microsoft Translator. Available for both Windows 10 PC and Mobile, the app can translate text, audible phrases and printed material into a number of languages.

The interface is simple and straightforward with some of the language databases available to download for offline use. Otherwise, a data connection is required. We have seen Microsoft Translator grow over the years from a basic translator app to a feature rich communications tool. It is a must-have app for anyone who needs translate foreign languages.

While we tested out the Windows 10 Mobile version of Microsoft Translator, the app's interface is consistent with very few deviations when used on a Windows 10 PC — most differences come down to the increase in screen size.

Translator opens up to the main translation screen where you can enter text or audible phrases for translation. You can also launch the camera to translate printed material (road signs, billboards, menus, etc.). A menu rests in the upper left corner that provides you access to your language choices, offline translation, favorite translations and the app's settings.

At the bottom of the Windows 10 Mobile version, you will find your selected languages and options to share, copy, edit or delete a translation. A similar layout is present with the Windows 10 PC version.

Settings for Translator include:

• Clearing your translation history
• Turning on/off a Spell Checker
• Turning on/off the Word of the Day feature
• Choosing the language for the Word of the Day
• Selecting dialects for select languages

The Word of the Day feature will display a new word to learn when you pin the Translator app to your Start Screen. It is a nice feature to familiarize yourself with a new language.

As far as the translation languages are concerned, they span everything from Spanish to Klingon (yes, Klingon — qapla'!). Translation's available in three different methods: text (51 languages), voice (18 languages), and camera (22 languages).

The camera translation is possibly the coolest feature. If you are dining out and need help making heads or tails of a menu, just launch the camera feature and fill the frame with your menu. Once everything comes into focus, the app will superimpose translated text on the screen. You can capture the image to share or simply save for future use. If available, the captured text can also be translated and spoken aloud by the phone.

Of the 51 total languages, 17 are available to download and store on your device, letting you translate without having to rely on your data connection. Each of the downloadable language packs support the same translation methods (typing, voice, and camera) as when used online. Downloading these packs before setting out on an international escapade will help you to keep translating while avoiding being hit with painful roaming data charges.

A Rosetta Stone for Windows 10

Microsoft's Translator app has always been a quality app to help bridge language barriers and through the years, it has only gotten better with each update. The interface is simple and the translation library has a broad range of languages. I just wish the translation methods were consistent throughout the language choices (and that Latin was also included).

The audible recording was accurate (even with my Southern accent) and the playback offers a mix of male and female voices. Translation speed was quick for text translation or voice translation. Camera translation took a few seconds, but nothing overly dramatic.

Translator is a great tool while traveling, not only to let you find the right words to say but also interpret what's being said to you. Even if you don't travel much, the free Microsoft's Translator is a good app to have on your Windows 10 PC or Mobile devices just in case the need arises.

Download Microsoft's Translator for Windows 10 PC and Mobile

When you use the Foursquare online restaurant and event finder service in another country, it will now be able to translate any user-created reviews and tips to your language. thanks to a new partnership with Microsoft.

The Microsoft Translator API supports translations of 50 written languages, and now those tools are being used by Foursquare. Microsoft says:

The Microsoft Translator API is the same one that is used in the Windows version of Skype to translate text as well as voice calls in several languages.

Source: Microsoft; Via: WinBeta

Microsoft has expanded access to another language for its Microsoft Translator apps, along with the many other apps and services that use the company's translation features. The Kiswahili language can now be used, in text form, by Microsoft Translator, and become the first African language to be supported by the company.

Kiswahili is better known as Swahili by some people. Microsoft says:

Microsoft worked with the non-profit group Translators without Borders to add support for Kiswahili. It's also available as part of the recent real-time translator features added to Microsoft's Skype for Windows desktop app.

Source: Microsoft; Via: WinBeta

In September, the beta version of Microsoft Translator for both Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile went live in the Windows Store. Now Microsoft has removed the "beta" label from the app, indicating that it is officially launched for its Windows 10 platforms.

Aside from some bug fixes and stability improvements, the only main new feature in this 4.0 version of the app is that it now comes with the full universal app features, meaning that Microsoft Translator's UI will work on any screen size on Windows 10 devices. Here's a quick breakdown of its features:

• Text translation - Enter text to translate into one of 50 languages and scripts.
• Camera translation - Point your camera at signs, menus, newspapers — any printed text in 19 languages and scripts — then tap to see the translation.
• Voice translation - Translate by speaking one of 10 languages into your phone.
• Offline translation - Download a translation pack so you can translate even when you're offline — handy when you're traveling and you want to avoid expensive data roaming charges.
• Text-to-speech - Hear translations from a native speaker.
• History, search & favorites - Your translations are saved, so you can search through your history to find them later. Mark translations as favorites to find them even more quickly.
• Word of the Day - Learn a new word or phrase everyday by pinning Translator to Start.

Hands-on with Microsoft Translator Beta for Windows 10

Download Microsoft Translator Beta for Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile (Free)

I've been playing with the Microsoft Translator Beta that was discovered this morning and love that it's a universal app. I can use the app on my Surface Pro 3 and Lumia 830 and have the same overall experience. Want to see it action? Watch our hands-on video.

The main section displays a history of your translation requests. At the bottom, there's a textbox where you enter the text that needs to be translated. You can also use the microphone and camera.

Below the text box, you select the two languages you translate to and from. Text translation supports 50 languages while camera translation supports 19 languages. It goes down to 10 languages for voice translation. Tap one of the languages to bring up the list. You scroll on both sides to select the languages and can tap the arrows in the middle to switch sides.

Camera translation is really handy because it may be faster than manually typing into the text box. If the language is supported, you can tap the camera icon on the main page to activate it and then point your camera towards the phrase. The translation appears right on top of the words. This may be very handy for street signs and restaurant menus.

Microphone translation is also handy when you don't want to type the phrase into the app. Just keep in mind that this method supports less than half the number of languages when using the keyboard.

Another great feature is revealed if you pin Translator 10 beta to Start. The live tile displays a new word or phrase every day. This works on both Windows 10 and Windows 10 mobile, along with all the other features. You can also mark translations as favorites for faster access. There's support for offline translations, but the app warns that isn't as accurate as online translation.

Overall, Translator 10 Beta is a great addition to the world of Windows 10 apps. The UI isn't very good-looking, but it works. Keep in mind that it is still marked as beta, so things may still change. Download Translator 10 Beta now if you haven't tried it yet and let us know what you think!

Download Microsoft Translator 10 Beta for Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile (Free)

There's a new Universal Windows App from Microsoft headed our way in the not too distant future. As revealed by a listing in the Windows 10 Store, Microsoft Translator 10 Beta is the next version of Redmond's own language converter.

As of the time of writing we can't download the app on either Windows 10 or Windows 10 Mobile but the Store listing does at least give us a look at the new app and a few details. Functionally, it appears on a par with Microsoft's current apps. Features include translating using the camera, voice or text, and a whole host of different languages to choose from.

But there's no doubting the visual makeover with a Windows 10 flavor. As the screenshots below show.

As already mentioned (and as we'd expect from Microsoft, honestly) it looks like it's a Universal App so we'll be able to translate on the go with Windows 10 Mobile. Functionality and appearance look identical, just, well, smaller, as these screens show.

While we may not be able to install it, it's good that another first party app is getting the Windows 10 treatment. We've included the Store link below so you folks will be able to download when it's live.

Download Microsoft Translator 10 Beta

Thanks Fahmi for the tip!

The new languages supported for online translation are Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbian, with the latter also picking up camera translation support.

With today's update, Microsoft notes that the number of languages supported by Microsoft Translator is up to a total of 50. Of course, the new languages are also supported elsewhere, as the engine behind the Windows Phone app also performs the heavy lifting for translation in many other Microsoft services such as Bing Translator, Skype Translator, and in Office.

If you have yet to snag the update, you can do so from the store link below. Sretan ažirirajući!

Thanks to everyone who sent in tips!

Download Microsoft Translator for Windows Phone (free)

Microsoft is internally testing a new version of its Translator app for Windows Phone. The app has a listing on the Windows Phone Store site, but currently cannot be installed on normal consumer devices.

WindowsBlogItalia somehow managed to get the Translator beta app to work, and took some screenshots that show a new user interface compared to the current public version. The pivot interface appears to have been ditched in this beta version, with a static screen and all necessary buttons taking its place.

There's no word on when this new version of the Translator app will be released to the public.

Source: WindowsBlogItalia

Need help writing messages in Lolcat? T3XT K1NG may be worth checking out. This app for Windows Phone 8 helps you translate and share texts to and from funny languages like Lolcat, Leet, Pig Latin, Tutnese and a bunch of others including local ludlings and flip and reverse of texts.

WE HAS VIDEO AFTR TEH BREAK.

To get started, just type text at the top section and click the right arrow. The translation appears at the bottom. The default language is Lolcat, but there are other free options. If you need more, there are translator packages for you to buy. For example, the Advanced Package is available as an in-app purchase for $1.29. It includes:

• Faux Cyrillic
• Leet Medium
• Leet Extreme
• Reverse per Word
• Flip
• Flip and Reverse

To give you an idea on some of the translations, let’s convert, “WPCentral is the best Windows Phone site ever” to three languages.

• Lolcat: WPCENTRAL IS TEH BEST WINDOWS FONE SITE EVR.
• Izzle: WPCentrizzle is thizzle bizzle Windizzle Phonizzle sitizzle evizzle.
• Leet Light: WPC3ntr4l 1s t3h b3st W1nd0ws Ph0n3 s1t3 3v3r.

Some of the translations can be reversible. If you have received something in Leet, you can translate it back to plain English. Unfortunately, Lolcat is not supported.

If you like, you can share these translations via SMS, mail, Twitter, or Facebook. The translations are also automatically copied to the clipboard for later use. Keep in mind that special characters may not display properly on all devices you share the text to.

There’s a history button at the top corner in case you need to remember past translations. There’s also random button at the bottom if you’re running out of ideas.

T3XT K1NG is a free download at the Windows Phone Store with in-app purchases for extra language packs. Download it now and let us know what you think in the comments.

When you travel, it’s handy to have a translation app on your phone. One app you might want to install before leaving on your trip is Translator with Speech. It is usually listed among the top-paid and best-rated language apps for Windows Phone. It has also just received an update to version 2.2, adding more languages.

Head past the break for our hands on video and walkthrough.

Using Translator with Speech is very straightforward. There are two flags on the upper right corner that you can click on to change languages. Pressing the arrows switches their positions. You can use the text bar to type what you need to translate, or tap the microphone to input with your voice.

After a few seconds, the translation appears in blue and gets played via your phone’s speakers.

There’s also offline translation available if you don’t have connectivity. There are a few hundred popular tourist phrases like, “What do you recommend,” or, “Where’s the toilet.” 10 language files are already pre-installed and you can download the rest as needed before your trip. Translator with Speech currently supports 54 languages, recently adding voice recognition for Afrikaans, Arabic, Hebrew, and Malay in version 2.2 (for Windows Phone 8 only).

To save on roaming or data charges, your previous translations are also saved for later playback.

There are several other things you can do with the translations. Press and hold the translations to see the options. You can post translated text to social networks like Twitter and Facebook. You can also send the text via message or email. There’s also an option to copy the text into the clipboard.

Developed by Brillisoft, Translator with Speech is available at the Windows Phone Store for $2.99. There’s also a free trial available. Is this your favorite translation app for Windows Phone or do you have something else in mind? Let us know in the comments!

Microsoft is taking its Kinect technology to a whole new level. We've already looked at how the company is attempting to integrate its product into retail, but Microsoft Research is also tapping into sign language. Numerous videos have been released showing off how the Kinect Sign Language Translator is able to interpret sign language and translate it.

The technology works both ways (wouldn't be such a good conversation otherwise, right?), but this alone shows just how useful the Xbox Kinect is when not used to keep fit or play video games.

How does the technology work? Sign language is detected, captured and translated to text while speech is rendered as visual signs for the hard hearing to see on-screen. Being mastered in Asia, the technology currently supports 300 Chinese sign language words out of a total of 4,000.

Check out the video below to see an overview on the project and how the technology works:

Explaining the scope of the project, Guobin Wu, Research Program Manager, Microsoft Research Asia, wrote the following in a blog post on MSDN:

​This technology can prove useful in many situations and Wu plans to make the technology available outside the lab. According to the program manager, there are more than 20 million people in China who are hard of hearing, who join an estimated 360 million around the world. We look forward to seeing further progress made with the project.

Head on over to the Microsoft Research website for more details and be sure to check out the blog posts over on MSDN (part 1) (part 2). via: The Next Web

In a world where Google is king, Bing is beginning to spread. The service’s take over on iOS devices as Siri’s new backend search engine is a large step forward for the company, but Microsoft isn’t done there. Yesterday at Build 2013, the company announced that they would be opening a large number of new APIs and controls to developers.

Developers can now add Bing Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to their Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 applications.  A control can be implemented into applications which will allow the user to snap an image through the camera and have detailed information about the extracted text returned to the app itself.

Deploying an application throughout the world is no longer a problem with Bing Translator control. The new addition powered by Microsoft’s Translator API will automatically detect text and translate it into a specified language. No more worries about deploying that English news app to China.

Windows has always had the ability to take advantage of Text-to-Speech, but now the service is powered by Bing in Windows 8.1. Developers can take advantage of the new API in their C++, C#, and HTML-based JavaScript applications. In addition, a variety of voices are available now including English, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Russian, Polish, and Portuguese. All languages are powered by a synthesizer female voice, except for English which can be male or female.

Lastly, new integration of Bing Maps is available for developers. Programmers had to go through the pain staking process of parsing JSON-objects to communicate with Bing (very annoying for those who don’t code), now developers simply reference a collection of .NET classes (much easier!).

Microsoft also announced that the ability for developers to integrate 3D mapping capabilities powered by Bing is coming soon.

Are you excited of Bing beginning to take over or are you still a Googler?

Source: Bing Developer Blog

Today Microsoft released the Bing Translator App for Windows 8. Just like the Translation application on your Windows Phone, you can now easily convert between 40 different languages using your PC.

Bing Translator app is based on years of Microosft Research and advanced machine learning. The application can translate text, visual images, and content you find on the web. Simply type in what you would like translated, point the tablet’s camera for an augmented experience, or use Windows 8’s share charm to translate content anywhere on your PC.

In adddition, Microsoft offers several language packs to download for offline use of the application including Chinese simplified, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. According to the company, more language packs will be coming in the near future.

You can grab the app for free here.

Let us know what you think – has Bing Translator ever saved you when you needed a language translated?

Source: Bing Blog

There are some apps that really stand out for being genuinely useful and Bing Translator is one of them. The app was released some time back on Windows Phone 7 and has rightly proved to be incredibly popular due to its slick operation and advanced features.

The app has been updated to support Windows Phone 8 and you can now initiate the augmented translation mode by using the new lenses feature.

Recently I used the app extensively whilst in France as I honestly cannot speak a word of French and it proved invaluable for my trip. You’ll get options to translate text by using keyboard input but you’ll also be able to speak directly into the app and get speech to text translation too. While there is much made of the uses of “augmented reality” Bing Translate uses it to great effect, allowing you to point your camera at things you see to view a live translation of the image.  The team over at Bing are doing some amazing work to bring all this together so you should check that out.

Along with that you can also opt to download full offline translation packs for Simplified Chinese, English, French, German and Italian. Grab the packs you need for your trip and you don’t have to worry about a data connection and the associated charges while you’re away. On my last trip I found the app worked brilliantly with the offline translation I threw at it.

If you’re keen on improving your own skills you can enable the live tile to show you a word of the day so you can keep in the game. The Windows Phone 7 version was a top performer anyway and the Windows Phone 8 version is likewise slick and well designed. The only issue I can see is that my offline language packs are taking forever to download at the moment and I am seeing a “Sorry, can’t download that right now, try again later” message. I’ll keep trying, if you folks are seeing the same issue be sure to let us know in the comments.

You can grab the app from the Windows Phone Store

Explained: A familiar error message for some Windows Phone users

Ever since WhatsApp was pulled and then re-released this past weekend, we have had a small deluge in complaints from users that they cannot install the update. Instead, they are greeted with the above error message, resulting in user frustration. What’s more, uninstalling the app, resetting the phone and dancing around in a circle did not fix the problem either.

We’ve been trying to figure out exactly why some users have the problem while others, including ourselves, do not. Just as interestingly, we wanted to know which apps were exhibiting the error.

Microsoft has now detailed the problem on the Windows Phone Blog and there’s good news and some bad news. The good news is they acknowledge that there is an issue and they even know what is causing it. As it turns out, there are some problems with certificates for new apps published in the Marketplace within the last week. 

Windows Phone apps that were already on the Marketplace are fine, it is only ones that went through after the AppHub to DevCenter change.  What’s more, it’s only a subset of Windows Phone owners—those that have a non-Mango device. In other words, first generation Windows Phones that were later updated to Windows Phone 7.5 Mango are the only ones who cannot get certain apps right now. Those apps are the New York Times, WhatsApp and Translator, to name a few.

This explains why we haven’t seen the issue ourselves as we’re all running new hardware.

Changes to the new Dev Center have caused a few issues

As we mentioned, Microsoft is aware of the problem and a fix is expected soon. Until then, Windows Phone users who cannot update their apps are encouraged to not uninstall them as this will disable their ability to get that app until this issue is resolved (so keep WhatsApp at the previous version). For everyone else who is not having any problems, there is no need to worry, as you will continue to be oblivious to any of these problems.

There is also an issue here for developers. Those who have recently submitted app updates may have noticed that the process is taking a long time. In short, until this situation is resolved with the bad certificates, Microsoft is holding all app certifications so as to prevent further instances of non-updatable apps for consumers.

To summarize, Microsoft has acknowledged that there is an issue with bad certificates on a small number of apps. What’s more, these apps are only having a negative impact on non-Mango phones—that is if your phone shipped with Mango or higher, you’re okay. Microsoft is working on a fix and we’ll keep you posted on when that goes through. For now, hold onto your apps and developers, standby as Microsoft gets new certificates for your app updates.

Source: Windows Phone Blog; Windows Phone Developer Blog

Update: Microsoft as created an area at Microsoft Answers to better address consumer questions on this issue.  Additionally, a similar area has been created for developers here at the MSDN forums.

Microsoft yesterday announced commercial availability of their Microsoft Translator Hub. The service has been designed to allow developers and business to deliver tailored, real-time translation in up to 39 languages.  The real-time translation is available as an Azure Marketplace application, enabling users to leverage the Microsoft Cloud to deliver more relevant machine translation applications to their customers.

The applications vary for this service but as an example, it will allow for fluid, real time translation of live web chat interactions from customer services representatives. It goes beyond plain machine translation by allowing the output to be fully optimised for that particular application. A private set of data can be uploaded and using the Translator’s machine learning training system, output can then be tailored as required. Manipulating the output could allow exclusion of business specific nomenclature such as names of products or abbreviations. These customised translation scenarios can then be tested deployed so that they suit each application for which they are targeted. Once the solution is deployed, it can accessed through the familiar Microsoft Translator Service API, all the time being kept private or shared, depending on what you require.

Many of you may already be familiar with Microsoft’s translation engine. You can experience it though their Bing Translator Web page. Better still if you are a Windows Phone user (that’s why you’re here right?) you can simply download their excellent Translator app that allows for online as well as offline translation. The app uses a compressed version of the Bing Translation engine in conjunction with language packs to provide for offline translation. Currently it supports six languages Chinese, English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. It’s well worth a try.

What Microsoft are doing here is allowing its users a flexible way to combine their own customised translation models (using the Microsoft Translator Hub) with the solid existing MS Translator API. This in turn will allow those that use the service to build and deploy highly scalable solutions to fit their own needs rather than utilising a less than flexible off the shelf solution.

How does this stack up against Google’s Translation offering?

Whilst Google offer a similar set of Translation services for machine translation applications, they provide support for up to 60+ languages, which is almost double that of what Microsoft currently offers. Microsoft look to be offering users a way to leverage their machine learning engine to help customers maximise the relevance and accuracy of the translated output.

Providing the Translator Hub to users could just be compelling enough for its customers to choose Microsoft’s cloud based service over that of Google’s.  As the MS service is a linguistically informed statistical machine translation system, I would expect that its machine learning would only get better the more it is used. Perhaps Microsoft will, by proxy improve its service simply by seeing how their Cloud based system adapts to the various custom data sets that will be finding its way to them via the Translator Hub?

Machine Dreams

One of the things I find the most exciting with these cloud-based machine learning systems is the potential for improvement and progress for everyone. The collective input via millions of transactions of speech recognition and text translation queries via the web, combined with powerful machine learning, should lead to rapid improvements in the quality of results.

I’d certainly like to hope that this improved backend will benefit us directly with faster, more accurate speech recognition technology. Microsoft have revealed a few teasers of their proposed improvements to the Tellme speech engine. Currently it is fairly limited but its been demoed at the recent the Windows Phone 8 summit engaged in what they call conversational querys. So there will actually be a two way interaction with the service, this will be made available to 3^rd party developers to power their apps.

If you haven't tried Microsoft's Translator app for Windows Phone (it has augmented reality!) you can grab there here in the Marketplace for free.

Source Microsoft via ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft has recently updated the official Bing Translator app for Windows Phone, which reportedly adds functionality enabling users to translate from speech, via the camera or through keyboard input. With the camera, Translator allows users to simply capture a sign, menu, newspaper or any printed text on their Windows Phone for instant translations.

Language and phrase books can be downloaded within the app for offline usage, especially handy for when traveling abroad in supported countries (voice translations still require data connectivity). A variety of languages are available and results are fairly accurate. The in-app translators can be pinned to the home screen for convenient access when requiring fast results.

The interface is straight forward and functions are available straight from the main menu, there's little clutter in the Translator app. We've not touched on the Translator offering from Microsoft since the Windows Mobile days, but overall, it's not too shabby for a free app.

You can download Microsoft's Translator from the Marketplace for free.

Thanks Alexander for the heads up!

Amazing Weather is wonderful weather app for your Windows Phone. The weather app brings everything from current conditions to weekly forecasts to weather radar to your Windows Phone.

The Amazing Weather developers are hard at work on version 3.0 of Amazing Weather that will bring themes, weather alerts, offline mode, auto location detection, and a refined user interface to the mix. But they need your help.

Amazing Weather v3's new "Metro" look

Amazing Weather needs translators for as many languages as they can find. If you care to translate weather terms into the various languages you know, just shoot Eizsoft an email at amazingweather@eizsoft.com with TRANSLATION as the subject line. In return for your help, you'll get a thanks in the About Screen of Amazing Weather and a free Beta copy.

If you're not familiar with Amazing Weather, there is a free trial version available and the full version is running $1.29.  You can find it here at the Windows Phone Marketplace.

source: XDA Developers

Babylon is a popular online translation service that is making its way over to the mobile world. Back in December, we mentioned that the company had taken advantage of Microsoft's Mobile Acceleration Week 2011 in Israel to build the popular language translator for Windows Phone. From the description at the time:

That app is now live and while the service is very powerful it's not the best translator we've used, partially because it doesn't have direct sharing options (though you can copy paste) nor the ability to pronounce anything i.e. text-to-speech. That latter part irks us a bit as apps built off of Bing's Translator service can do this quite readily. Still, for direct translations of whole paragraphs, it's not too shabby and it is free meaning it is worth the download if you need such a service.

Pick up Babylon Translator here in the Marketplace. Check out Babylon's online translation here: http://translation.babylon.com/ Thanks, Hassan H., for the heads up

ArkWords is  a great little app by Arktronic that features not only a great dictionary and thesaurus but an impressive, multi-language translator. In addition, it has a swanky Live Tile that updates every morning with the WOT (word of the day).

The app is superbly built with a very minimalist and fluid UI. Plus it's free, so there's little reason to not give it a shot. And now that the Live Tile has been fixed in v1.1, all seems right with the app and gets our strong recommendation.

Grab it here in the Marketplace and go here for the developer's blog.

Need a simple, straight forward translation application? It doesn't get any simpler than Translator from Microsoft.

The Windows Phone 7 application will translate words and phrases to and from English, Italian, Spanish, German and French. Translator will also provide you with a list of commonly used phrases that can be translated to the various languages.

The interface is straight forward and simple. The "from" and "to" languages are shown above two text entry fields. To change the languages, simply tap the language and choose the desired language from the list. If you want to reverse the translation order, tap the "swap button" at the bottom of the screen.

Entering text to be translated is done by tapping the top entry field to pull up the on-screen keyboard. Type what you need translated, tap the "translate" button and your translation appears in the bottom field. If you need an audible translation, tap the speaker button below the translated text field.

Translator comes with pre-loaded phrases that are accessible from the "phrase" button at the bottom of the screen. Additionally, the phrases you enter are added to the list for convenience. Phrases can be deleted from the Phrase List by tapping and holding a phrase and choosing "delete" from the pop-up menu.

I liked the simplicity of Translator and that the phrases you enter are saved to the phrase list. I also liked the audio option to hear how the translation sounds. Now we just need the ability to enter phrases for translation audibly and the app would be near perfect.

If you need a simple translation application on your Windows Phone, Translator should make everyone's short list. Translator is available for FREE at the Marketplace and a trial version is available.

Hit the jump to see Translator in action.

Correction: In the video I state that Translator is running $1.99 at the Marketplace.  I goofed and was thinking of another app at the time.  Translator is a FREE app which makes it all the more better.

On Microsoft's own Channel 9 yesterday, they showed off some of the free apps in the new Marketplace for Windows Phone 7.

Now these are hardly "killer" apps, in fact they are more demo apps with the source-code available for developers to build off of and incorporate into their own programs.

The programs demoed were pretty basic, much like the ones you find on Samsung phones:

• Bubble/Spirit Level
• Unit Converter
• Shopping list
• Weather
• Stocks
• 2D game based on SilverLight: 'Unite'
• Translator

The 2D game 'Unite' was kind of neat--it's just meant as brief time killer and is similar to 'Teeter' from HTC except instead of getting the ball in the hole, you need to combine two or more balls.  Looks kind of fun actually.

But the real big thing was the demonstration of Bing Translator, which seems to be an expansion of this new service shown off back in May. Basically, you type in what you want to say and it will translate it for you in text; hit the speaker button and it will speak the phrase for you, even with an authentic accent.

The service is a hybrid one: it uses your data connection for new phrases, but stores old ones on the device. This will enable quick playback of phrases without having to constantly reach into the cloud (Android is 100% cloud based with translation, making Microsoft's solution more preferable). The app also already comes with an impressive list of canned phrases which you can quickly access and supports five-languages on launch:

• French
• German
• Italian
• Spanish
• English

What's neat is like the other apps, Microsoft is making the source-code of this program available to developers, meaning anyone can incorporate and expand upon what they've already offered. This combined with their emphasis on voice could potentially give Android a run for their money (and leave Apple far behind).

Check out the video after the break. It's only 18 minutes of your time.

Traveling to a foreign land and don't care much about roaming data costs? Check out this neat trick: you can use MSN messenger as a translation service with the new version of Windows Live Messenger Translation bot. Once you add the mtbot@hotmail.com you can start chatting to get translations. Currently supported languages are:

• English to/from: Arabic ,Chinese Simplified ,Chinese Traditional ,Dutch ,French ,German ,Italian ,Japanese ,Korean ,Portuguese ,Russian (RUS->ENU only) ,Spanish
• Chinese Simplified Chinese Traditional

If you have your (Windows-based) laptop with you, then you might also be interested in Windows Live Accelerator for Internet Explorer 8 Beta. This allows you to browse over to the Italian web page your friend designed and read through instructions like a champ. All you have to do is highlight what you want translated then click on