Sogou Launches Travel Translator
Sogou has launched an artificial intelligence-powered, portable translation device, dubbed the Sogou Travel Translator, as well as the Sogou Smart Translation Recorder and translation software.
The Sogou Travel Translator translates dialogue from 17 languages, including Chinese, English, German, Arabic, and Russian, into the target language in real time, enabling users to read or listen to the translation. The offline translation mode also allows users to translate real-time dialogue between English and Chinese without being connected to the internet.
By applying source localization and beamforming, the Sogou Travel Translator can suppress noise and interference to improve automatic speech recognition (ASR) in complicated far-field speech interactions. Leveraging voice data and microphone arrays, the Sogou Travel Translator has achieved a voice recognition accuracy rate of 97 percent.
Sogou also introduced the Sogou Smart Translation Recorder and upgraded translation software as part of a suite of translation products. The Sogou Smart Translation Recorder further supports the interpretation of both real-time and recorded conversations, allowing users to acquire information in classes, meetings, and other similar occasions, and simultaneously translates spoken content into the target languages.
The Sogou Input Method, which enables the real-time translation of text from Chinese to English, has similarly been upgraded to support translation from Chinese to Korean and Japanese. These translation tools all make it easier for Sogou users to communicate across borders.
"Millions of Chinese tourists face a language barrier when they travel abroad, and we are excited to offer a device that can solve this common problem. The Sogou Travel Translator is designed to accurately translate spoken words, even if there is background noise. It can also translate text embedded in images, such as on menus and street signs, and functions both online and offline. A device such as ours is more convenient than a smartphone translation app that requires internet connectivity and uses expensive international data," Xiaochuan Wang, CEO of Sogou, said in a statement. "We are entering a new era where AI technology is unlocking a world of possibilities, and we are excited by the wide range of potential applications in the smart hardware space. We will continue to explore ways that we can leverage Sogou's expertise in AI, particularly in natural language processing, to develop other smart hardware solutions to everyday challenges."