Translator apps take a set combination of words and translate to another language.
They do not take into account context or multiple people talking in conversation.
There are speech-to-text and auto-notation/dictation software that not only check for grammar, but can distinguish between people speaking and even multiple speakers. There are even translator apps that seemingly do exactly this -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/10/04/googles-new-headphones-can-translate-foreign-languages-real/ The BBC have been using similar software for years Craig, for people who are hard of hearing or deaf.
When you watch the News, do you think that there are scores of touch typists working around the clock to transcribe what is being said?
If you do, then read this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_recognitionFurther note - (regarding your belief that the tech isn't there):
"The Google Brain Team has recently reached significant breakthroughs for Google Translate, which is part of the Google Brain Project. In September 2016, the team launched the new system, Google Neural Machine Translation (GNMT), which is an end-to-end learning framework, able to learn from a large amount of examples. While its introduction has greatly increased the quality of Google Translate's translations for the pilot languages, it was very difficult to create such improvements for all of its 103 languages. Addressing this problem, the Google Brain Team was able to develop a Multilingual GNMT system, which extended the previous one by enabling translations between multiple languages. Furthermore, it allows for Zero-Shot Translations, which are translations between two languages that the system has never explicitly seen before.[25] Recently, Google announced that Google Translate can now also translate without transcribing, using neural networks. This means that it is possible to translate speech in one language directly into text in another language, without first transcribing it to text. According to the Researchers at Google Brain, this intermediate step can be avoided using neural networks. In order for the system to learn this, they exposed it to many hours of Spanish audio together with the corresponding English text. The different layers of neural networks, replicating the human brain, were able to link the corresponding parts and subsequently manipulate the audio waveform until it was transformed to English text."
Babblefish, no?
Now let's pretend you didn't just make up some figures to try and argue a point for a minute...
- There is no market currently where any platform is selling targeting audience to marketers based on listened to conversations.
Same could be said to you - easy comment to make for the basis of your argument - but I'm guessing that you have never been to a test screening for production companies, I have whilst studying for my Master's (which was angled at TV 3.0 and interactive SmartViewing). Apples and oranges for the point-at-hand, it will no doubt be claimed, but it is naive and/or obtuse to state that consumer/audience feedback isn't one of the first processes that companies use to shape their products, services, audience and customer relations.
I imagine that the likes of Saatchi and Saatchi do similar and if they do it, you can bet Silicon Valley do it. Why pay for scores of qualitative feedback/data, with release clauses, insurance, travel food and whatnot - when you can get people to do it from the comfort of their own armchairs?
What Freemantle did was exactly that (through what I assume was an external agency) - they had a spread of demographics and from the feedback provided, they were then able to understand the 5 w's of their audience. I am assuming that this information is either sold or shared with both Freemantle/Shed Media and the big networks. We were given a tour of BBC Scotland up in the quays, given BBC badges, had a few drinks and some snacks to loosen our tongues, they even brought in that girl from Waterloo Road to give us a ten-minute chat about breaking into TV - even though we were all writers.
It wasn't like you see in America - they literally show you clips of shows - you fill out questionnaires and you have to sign a release to be recorded. it is a strange experience and there is always a shit-stirrer from the production company in there to mix it up a little. Added to that, there is a 'joker' (not in the sense you think), who is someone like Jerry Springer - they facilitate the discussions.
All this is to make money and target their audience.
If you genuinely think that this isn't used in the commercial technology sector -
possibly surreptitiously, then you are only kidding yourself.
People are saying it's actually happening now though mate, hence the thread, and people posting examples where it, apparently, couldn't be anything but them listening in.
If the discussion was would companies like it to head that way and are they (some) actively developing hardware and software to do so, then yeah, I think we'd all agree that's the case.
Erm... have you read or watched anything that people have posted?
I'll post it again -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35639549That is an application that they have wrote themselves and it sends the data over the internet to a server - so they have proved that the hardware and software
is there.
Same people speaking about, what you keep citing as, technological limitations and phones not having the capacity to do so:
http://www.stocknewspaper.com/is-your-smartphone-listening-to-you/People are quick to argue against the veracity of it that it could be anything but them listening, even though the coincidences are... baffling... But as I have said before, they are experts in this field Craig and study this tech for a living - I know people go missing and re-direct to other stream of argumentation when expert opinion is posted - but answer me this: are they wrong? Yes or no?
As much as believers are said to be delusional - I am beginning to think that doubters are either in denial or being deliberately argumentative. I think what you are having difficulty with, if I may say, is applying your technical knowledge to your imagination (as wanky as that sounds) - we are past the technological debate to a degree and ethically speaking, if you think that companies out there haven't developed the capability, the software and hardware to do just this - then look here.
https://snowboy.kitt.ai/And for the record I am humoured by the claim that people are still claiming that this is all hogwash anecdotal evidence, which it may be, and are expected to take our word for it - when the very thing that is being accused is being practiced. People are providing far more proof to back their claims that are being used to counterclaim. I have seen far more quantitative data on here to support theories, that is being presented to back up the claims that the tech isn't there and the motives aren't there - and the believers are painted as delusional?
I'm sorry, but that not only smacks of elitism, but it verges on sheer ignorance. I would suggest that anyone who has experience in this field and is wantonly ignoring what experts in this field are proving, that their experience and skills are actually working against their ability to constructively take on board other viewpoints and opinions other than their own.
This is an
unfolding story and I've said this before and I assume I will have to say it again - if any people think that they fully understand how this 'could' work (myself included), then they would be working for these multi-trillion dollar companies.
