When I first read (on The Register I think) about Microsoft’s new Skype translator I didn't really know what to believe I mean we now live in a world where even the most far-out and advanced concepts are becoming a reality - Knight Rider style Google Cars, ordering pizzas and cabs from your smart phone, Live HD video conferencing anywhere in the world (or even on a plane)!

I have played around with Apple's Siri, Bing Translate, Cortana and whilst all quite clever they lack the real understanding of the spoken word. hence, I was some what skeptical about the Skype Translator. I immediately thought about these experience, how will it deal with the complexities of language and accents?  How will it deal with homonyms?  and how can it ever be properly contextualised and therefore work in a real life real world environment?

Then..... I was lucky enough to see it in action...watching a live recording of Microsoft's new CEO Satya Nadella at the Worldwide Partner Conference where he demoed the product (albeit still in Beta) whereby a conversation was played out between one of his US colleagues and another German speaker.  After each person spoke they clicked a button when they had finished. THEN THE MAGIC HAPPENED....What we heard back was a near perfect full spoken (yes SPOKEN)  translation. It was incredible - and to think, I'm usually not that easy to impress!

So how does it work? Reading a bit  more about how this Translator technology works, impressed me even more. After a bit of googling (I mean Bing'ing) The Skype Translator actually works on a principle called "Deep Learning" which operates on the basis of neural networks rather than a set of language translation "rules" to deal with the complexities of languages.

This is huge and will no doubtedly have massive implications for the way we live and working the future. The full Beta is expected to land in November time so make sure you look out for it. We don't know yet how much of this will make its way into Lync - I would expect it too but as yet have not heard any clear messages about the matter.

If you havent seen Sype Translator in action, you can see aspects of it and how it works here: http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2014/05/27/microsoft-demos-breakthrough-in-real-time-translated-conversations/

Welcome your views/thoughts on this as always. @rquickenden or @Cisilion.