Skype Translator: Impressive, but Imperfect

It sometimes seems as if the highest praise an innovative new technology can earn is a credulous comparison to Star Trek. The Oculus Rift is like the Holodeck; 3-D printers are like matter replicators; Qualcomm is even sponsoring an X-Prize contest to build a working tricorder. And now Skype Translator, a real-time voice and text language translation app currently available to Windows 8.1 users as a public beta, is being widely compared to the "universal translator" that Captains Kirk and Picard used to effortlessly communicate with alien interlocutors. Skype Translator is less capable than that pat sci-fi analogy implies, but its limitations are as fascinating as its formidable technical achievements. Skype Translator performs instant translation of text chats in over 40 languages, but its marquee feature is real-time, spoken translation between English and Spanish speakers. Unlike Star Trek's fictional translator, Skype Translator is designed to emulate a human interpreter who acts as an intermediary between the two primary speakers.