AT&T Online Translation Service
Fred E.J. Linton
Deglopper) asks:
> Is this [translation service online] accessible from inside the US?
Yup. In a recent print ad AT&T lists the following 1-800 numbers for
"Customer Service for Questions and Interpreting":
Japanese: 338-8120
Korean: 338-8097
Mandarin: 338-8095
Spanish: 235-0900
as well as these other 1-800 numbers for related information:
222-0300
"How can we help you?": 661-0661, ext. 5513
I hope these help you.
Fred E.J. Linton Wesleyan U. Math. Dept. 649 Sci. Tower Middletown, CT 06459
E-mail: <FLI...@eagle.Wesleyan.EDU> ( or <fejlinton@{att|mci}mail.com> )
Tel.: + 1 203 776 2210 (home) or + 1 203 347 9411 x2249 (work)
Jacob R. Deglopper
> AT&T also offers a translation service online if you're in a fix
> abroad; no hint of the charge scale though.
Is this accessible from inside the US? I'm a volunteer EMT with a
rescue squad in the Washington DC suburbs, and we occasionally could
use some sort of translation. We're supposedly able to get it through
Andrews Air Force Base, but on at least one occasion, all we've been
able to get is Spanish, and we have members and police officers who
speak Spanish. The case in point was one night about 3 AM we had a man
who spoke only Chinese who seemed to have a severe case of poison ivy.
He didn't need an ambulance, or a hospital, just a good shot of
cortisone, but we ended up taking him anyway due to a lack of
communication. Anyone have any other ideas besides calling the
Chinese Embassy at 3 AM? It would have been a local call, and if it
_wasn't_ 3 AM, that's what I would have done.
_/acob DeGlopper, EMT-A, Wheaton Volunteer Rescue Squad
jr...@po.cwru.edu -- Biomedical Engineering '95, Case Western Reserve
Opinions my own...
John R Hall
are the numbers and address that customers can use to request more
information. I have not called these numbers to verify their
accuracy. If there is any problem, send me some E-mail and I'll
figure it out.
AT&T
Jeff Munks - Director Sales & Marketing
Building 2 Suite 400
1 Lower Ragsdale Drive
Monterey, CA 93940
800-752-6096 or 408-649-5871
8am - 5pm PST
Note that the service itself is 24 hours / seven days, but the info
line is just 8am-5pm.
John
Harold Hallikainen
I've heard that a voice online langauge translation service is
available here in CA, but I can't find any info on it. It might be
interesting to try some of the low cost text language translation
software now available. Selective Software (3004 Mission Street,
Santa Cruz, CA 95060, 800 423 3556) sells "Spanish Assistant", "French
Assistant", "German Assistant", and "Italian Assistant" for $79.95
each. Most translation software I've seen works "both ways" (ie,
English to Spanish and Spanish to English), but these appear to be one
way translators. They take an ascii file and generate an ascii file
in the target language. They include the standard editor that puts
the source and target files up on the screen side by side, to check
and edit the translation. They won't replace human translators, but
they seem better than nothing!
For the online emergency handling problem, text oriented
translators have a couple problems. Once you have the translated
text, can you read it into the phone? There are lots of languages
that would not be understandable to someone were I to try reading
them. This could possibly be handled by a voice synthesizer. Then,
the caller is going to speak in some language, and the dispatcher has
to try to figure out how to spell what the caller says. Well, we
could try to get into voice recognition, or require all telephones to
have asciii keyboards, but perhaps we'd better stick with human
translators!
Harold
Frederick G.M. Roeber
companies were showing their Japanese-English translation systems.
One system was a voice-to-voice interpreter for Japanese <--> English.
Voice recognition (of about 500 words in each language), sentance
analysis, translation, and voice synthesis took about four seconds.
No "training" was needed to teach it a new voice: you could walk up to
the microphone and say a sentance (within the 500 word vocabulary),
and it would translate it. In addition to the voice synthesis in
Japanese or English, it would display the text on a screen in both
languages plus French and Spanish.
Another company had a computer that could receive a G4 fax, separate
the text from the pictures, translate the text (Japanese <-->
English), paste it back in, and send the fax on. The slowest part of
this demo was the paper feeds in the faxes. It was only programmed to
recognize a few (typewritten) fonts, though.
There were lots of fun things at Telecom '91. When I get organized
I'll send in a summary of the fraction I saw.
Frederick G. M. Roeber | CERN -- European Center for Nuclear Research
e-mail: roe...@caltech.edu or roe...@cern.ch | work: +41 22 767 31 80
r-mail: CERN/PPE, 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland | home: +33 50 42 19 44
Michael A. Covington
Deglopper) writes:
> The case in point was one night about 3 AM we had a man
> who spoke only Chinese who seemed to have a severe case of poison ivy.
> He didn't need an ambulance, or a hospital, just a good shot of
> cortisone, but we ended up taking him anyway due to a lack of
> communication. Anyone have any other ideas besides calling the
> Chinese Embassy at 3 AM? It would have been a local call, and if it
> _wasn't_ 3 AM, that's what I would have done.
Call the Chinese Embassy in the daytime and ask them if they have
anyone on duty at night. (Probably so, for two reasons: they want to
be able to deal with emergencies at any time, and they probably do a
lot of their work when it is daytime in Peking rather than in
Washington.)
Even the lowliest receptionist would be able to give you all the help
you need; you wouldn't need to talk to an attache or anything.
Michael A. Covington, Ph.D. | mcov...@uga.cc.uga.edu | N4TMI
Assistant to the Director, Artificial Intelligence Programs
The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602, U.S.A.
Rick Broadhead
Toronto, effective Monday, is using AT&T's online translation services
in Monterey, California. Previously, when the 911 operator could not
understand a caller, ambulance, fire, and police vehicles were all
dispatched to the scene.
CHIEF HAILS 911 SERVICE TO INTERPRET LANGUAGES
By Dottie O'Neill
TORONTO STAR
A new emergency phone service that instantly interprets calls for help
in 140 languages is "absolutely fantastic" says Metro police Chief
William McCormack.
The system that the Metro police department has plugged into "meets
the needs of concerned groups within Metro's ethnic communities,"
McCormack said yesterday.
Starting Monday, calls to the emergency 911 line will provide almost
instant interpretation in 140 different languages, Metro police
announced yesterday.
These will include everything from Afrikaans to Zulu and Cantonese,
Mandarin, Swahili and Urdu.
The multilingual around-the-clock telephone service is provided by the
AT&T Language Line, acting Sergeant Lisa Hodgins said.
Call takers at Metro's police communications centre on Jarvis St. will
reach the service through a toll-free number "and a language line
service interpreter will come on the line momentarily" to determine
details of the emergency, Hodgins said.
With the touch of a button known as speed dialing, the local call
taker gets immediate access to the multilingual centre in Monterey,
Calif., said Inspector Bill Holdridge of the communications section.
The Metro call taker stays on the line to receive the interpreter's
instructions as given by the caller.
Last month, Metro police received at least 50 emergency calls from
people speaking languages that were not immediately recognizable,
Holdridge said.
AT&T will bill police $2 a minute to use the service. The average
conversation lasts for five minutes, research has shown.
"Ten dollars is very, very cheap to save a life or prevent a major
crime," Holdridge said.
The system was developed by a California police officer in the early
1980s after an influx of Vietnamese refugees.
Peel Region police have also hooked up to the service recently.
[originally appeared in {The Toronto Star}, Saturday November 2, 1991]
Rick Broadhead ysar...@VM1.YorkU.CA
Michael A. Covington
(Frederick G.M. Roeber) writes:
> At Telecom '91 a few weeks ago here in Geneva, a few Japanese
> companies were showing their Japanese-English translation systems.
> One system was a voice-to-voice interpreter for Japanese <--> English.
> Voice recognition (of about 500 words in each language), sentance
> analysis, translation, and voice synthesis took about four seconds.
> No "training" was needed to teach it a new voice: you could walk up to
> the microphone and say a sentance (within the 500 word vocabulary),
> and it would translate it.
Er... how good were the translations? How easy was it to make it
produce gibberish?
Machine translation is far from a solved problem. I've never seen a
convincing demonstration of it. At COMDEX a couple of years ago I
played with an English-to-Spanish translator that produced lots of
nonsense, in either language, whenever you didn't use its favorite
phrases.
Graham Toal
> In a previous article, gt...@gem.stack.urc.tue.nl (Graham Toal) says:
>> AT&T also offers a translation service online if you're in a fix
>> abroad; no hint of the charge scale though.
> Is this accessible from inside the US?
Well, the US number of USADirect on this info card I have here is:
1 800 874 4000 x359, or call collect on 412 553 7458 from overseas.
Now -- an update on my application for this card: I was phoned at work
by AT&T's UK sales person, who left a message saying she needed my
passport number and social security number. I was rather concerned by
this, because I know for a fact that the *only* people who can index
me anywhere under these numbers is the UK government. I've never
given anyone else these numbers (as anyone who has read my postings on
other groups about civil liberties might have guessed).
However, when I got in touch, it seems the reason was because they
assumed I was American. Apparently it is slightly problematical for a
non-US person to get this card (she didn't explain why, but I think it
was something to do with my wanting to pay with Amex), but she said
she would sort something out and make sure I got the card.
Graham
Mark Brader
But it's been brought back to my attention this week, because the
police forces both here in Metropolitan Toronto and in Peel Region
(the adjacent county-sized area to our west) have recently subscribed
to it to use with their emergency numbers.
Following are excerpts from a {Toronto Star} article of Saturday, Nov.
2, somewhat abridged by me for brevity and resequenced for clarity.
Starting Monday, calls to the emergency 911 line will provide almost
instant interpretation in 140 different languages, Metro police
announced yesterday. These will include everything from Afrikaans to
Zulu and Cantonese, Mandarin, Swahili and Urdu.
The multilingual around-the-clock telephone service is provided by the
AT&T Language Line. Call takers at Metro's police communications
centre on Jarvis St. will reach the service through a toll-free
number. With the touch of a button known as speed dialing, the local
call taker gets immediate access to the multilingual centre in
Monterey, Calif., and "a language line service interpreter will come
on the line momentarily." The Metro call taker stays on the line to
receive the interpreter's instructions as given by the caller.
AT&T will bill police $2 a minute to use the service. The average
conversation lasts for five minutes, research has shown. "$10 is
very, very cheap to save a life or prevent a major crime."
The system was developed by a California police officer in the early
1980s after an influx of Vietnamese refugees.
Last month, Metro police received at least 50 emergency calls from
people speaking languages that were not immediately recognizable.
(end of newspaper article)
-------------
I'd like to know what happens when the Language Line receives such a
call. If they can really cover 140 languages at any hour of the day
or night, they must have a considerable number of people there! Does
each incoming call go to *all* the interpreters simultaneously, until
one says "She's speaking Zulu, that's mine" and claims it? If not,
how do they do it?
How many interpreters does the service employ altogether -- and what
would be the most and the fewest that it has on duty at one time?
If this is already written up in the Telecom Archives, perhaps the
Moderator will supply a reference. If not, can someone tell us about
it?
Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto utzoo!sq!msb, m...@sq.com
[Moderator's Note: Its not in the archives that I know of. I think
what they do with some of the languages available is they contract
with people as needed, and call them at home (their office, etc) when
they need an on the spot translation. PAT]
Jamie Mason
writes:
> I'd like to know what happens when the Language Line receives such a
> call. If they can really cover 140 languages at any hour of the day
> or night, they must have a considerable number of people there! Does
> each incoming call go to *all* the interpreters simultaneously, until
> one says "She's speaking Zulu, that's mine" and claims it? If not,
> how do they do it?
No. AT&T's Genetic Engineering Department got a patent on the
Babel Fish. The Language line employs a small staff of regularly
trained AT&T operators, each of whom have a babel fish in one ear.
AT&T is considering suing Sirius Cybernetics Corperation, and
Douglas Adams, for violation of their trademark.
(To be taken with a grain of :-), of course...)
Jamie
David McKellar
Broadhead) writes:
> Speaking of translation services ...
> Toronto, effective Monday, is using AT&T's online translation services
> in Monterey, California. Previously, when the 911 operator could not
> understand a caller, ambulance, fire, and police vehicles were all
> dispatched to the scene.
I wonder if they have thought about how to know which of the 140
langauges the caller is speaking? Does somebody at the translation
service answer the phone, listen and think "That sounds like an
oriental language ... I'll try the Chinese translator" or "That sounds
Eastern European, maybe its Hungarian." etc. ?