If you have friends from other countries who speak different languages than you, then you might know how much of a problem it is to communicate with them in their own language.
Thankfully, products like Skype Translator stepped up and solved that problem for you to a great extent.
But what if you had something similar for those presentations that you make and have to share with people from other countries, people who spoke different languages (besides English) in their everyday life?
Enter Presentation Translator for PowerPoint
Microsoft is releasing something similar with the PowerPoint add-in called “Presentation Translator”. It will translate your voice (while you’re giving your presentation) in real time. You will need an iOS, Android or Windows app for it however.
In fact, the Presentation Translator also generates a link that lets the viewers see the translations in their own language.
Related:Â Skype Can Now Translate Voice Calls for Mobile and Landlines
It also translates your slides for you and supports more than 60 written languages.
For example, if you’re speaking in Urdu, the Presentation Translator will automatically understand what you’re saying and translate it to English. The English translation will be displayed below your slides as closed captions.
How Well Does It Work?
Microsoft showed off this add-on in their build conference today translating Spanish and Chinese in real time. It worked flawlessly with Spanish, producing an understandable sentence in its first try. It got stuck with Chinese though, taking a few tries to translate “AI is fantastic.” in Chinese.
Currently it supports 10 spoken languages including, Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.
The tech is still in its early stages, but its still a nice way for Microsoft to show off the translation capabilities of its Cognitive Services. Microsoft is going all in with AI which makes it all the more important for them to give a useful example of how this could help the average Joe.
Try it Out
Microsoft is previewing the new tool at their Garage site. You can sign up for using Garage by clicking here. You will be required to fill out a survey and start using it straight away.
As such it is not big development because such tools are already available in the market.