PDACorps Boldly Review Ectaco’s Partner Voice Translator

[Jonathon Watkins]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pdacorps.com/default.asp?key=pages/ectacovoice.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.pdacorps.com/default.asp...ectacovoice.htm</a><br /><br /></div><i>"If you’ve ever watched Star Trek, you’ve seen the “Universal Translator”—a magical device that makes it so everyone, including aliens from far off galaxies, speak in English. While this may seem the work of science fiction writers, today on the Pocket PC, such programs are closer than you may think. Enter Ectaco’s Partner Voice Translator, a slick, although expensive, piece of software designed with the world traveller in mind. Filled with pre-programmed phrases, the Translator was created to hear phrases spoken into your Pocket PC and then translate them into another language, all at the touch of a button. Sound too good to be true? Read on to see how the Partner Voice Translator stacks up."</i><br /><br /> <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/voice1.jpg" /><br /><br />Ah, the obligatory Star Trek review reference. Where on earth would we be without them? 0X Well, it seems that with Ectaco’s Partner Voice Translator, you could be just about anywhere in the world and still be understood. You can translate from English to Spanish, from Spanish to French, from Russian to Japanese etc. PDACorps actually examined the English to Spanish/French/German edition in this particular review and the price was £59.95 ($99.95). The English speech recognition system comes with over 3200 common phrases in 15 topics . So, if you travel a lot and think this could be of use, check out the free trial version at the Ectaco website <a href="http://www.ectaco.co.uk/software/list_by_all.php3?pagelang=23&amp;category=8&amp;refid=3&amp;rfr_id=2035292&amp;rqt_id=196&amp;pagelang=23">here</a>. (Just click on the version you want in order to download an evaluation copy). So, the future getting closer all the time. Just think what all those nice shiny new 624Mhz CPUs will eventually be able to do……. Set your PDAs to stun! :wink:

[Sven Johannsen]

Some of the phrases seem to be less than usefull. Who would want to rent a smaller yacht? :roll:

[wocket]

Does'nt work very well when there is other noise around. The pocketpc volume just can't cope.

Well I suppose you could bung your headphones on the person you are trying to communicate with.

Nothing beats actually learning to speak at least some of the language you need to communicate, people tend to be a bit more patient and respect you more for that :) .

[cameron]

Aren't those phrases a little redundant??

Do you really need to differentiate between boat, motorboat, and yacht? Couldn't you just say "I want a bigger boat".