the translator “breaks down language barriers and has important business implications as well—for example, providing better customer support, or communicating with colleagues, partners and business contacts in another country and another language.”
TelCentris CTO Kevin Hertz showed me how it worked, but it was a demonstration of simple phrases like “how are you?” and I didn’t get a good idea of how accurately the translation program works with more complicated messages.
The only question is whether the little San Diego startup can make itself heard above the clamor of much bigger companies making much bigger announcements. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made news yesterday, for example, when he unveiled the software giant’s new Windows Mobile 7 operating system. The world’s largest mobile operators also grabbed headlines by announcing they have joined forces to create a wholesale applications community and will develop a common open standard for a unified platform for mobile apps—so that mobile apps can run on just about any mobile handset.
Privately held TelCentris also faces some major competitors, such as Google Voice and Skpe. Just last week, Google announced it’s working on a sophisticated language translation service for mobile phones that will build on existing technologies in voice recognition and automatic translation.
Bratt, who recently joined Telcentris as vice president of corporate communications, tells me the concept of a universal translator was popularized by Star Trek, perhaps as a way of explaining how the aliens always spoke
