Microsoft Translator Updated With Offline AI Translations

Translation apps come in handy when traveling to a country where you don’t speak the language. Sometimes, you even need to memorize some basic phrases just to ensure that you get connectivity in order to use a translator. Microsoft wants to make that initial step even easier which is why it has now updated the Microsoft Translator app with offline AI translations.

Most major translation apps are capable of working offline, however, they can’t use powerful machine learning algorithms to go beyond offering just basic translations. This will now be possible on the Microsoft Translator app for iOS, Android, and Amazon Fire. The app will be able to run a slightly modified neural translation even when it’s offline.

It’s interesting to note that Microsoft has made this happen without requiring compatible devices to have a separate AI chip which is normally used for on-device AI computations. This means that the new feature in Microsoft Translator will be available for a majority of the smartphones out in the market today.

The company’s Arul Menezes adds that the new translation packs are much better and that they are capable of providing more human-like translation than the previous translation packs. The updated language packs are available for Arabic, Chinese-Simplified, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai. It will add more languages to the list in the future.

The updated app is now available for download via the Google Play Store for Android. iOS users will have to wait for a few days as it clears Apple’s App Store listing process.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Apps, Microsoft