Google is working to bring some handy new features to its Google translate app. The app will soon able to translate speech into another language, transcribes them in real-time, and saves the results as a handy text file that you can use later.
The prototype for real-time transcription is available but Google says it will release it for Android phones later this year.
According to a report by The Verge, the app might need an internet connection to bring real-time transcription to its user due to the increased processing power needed to offer multilingual translation together with real-time text rendering. The app also has to interpret the cadence of speech and any pauses, and add punctuation as appropriate.
In places where a free Wifi connection is readily available the cost implication will be moderate to nothing, but if roaming, the app could incur serious data costs just to be informed.
The app will only transcribe spoken words, so in case you get clever and you’re thinking of transcribing a pre-recorded session, that feature is not available at the moment. Google may bring it in the future.
The company says the app will only get better with time as algorithms are refined for speech and word detection accuracy.