From PC World: Microsoft is bringing the dream of the Star Trek universal translator to businesses later this year with the launch of a new beta feature that offers live captioning of Skype for Business meeting broadcasts in 40 languages.
Using Microsoft's Bing Translator technology, speakers will be able to talk in one of a handful of supported native languages, and their viewers will be able to view computer-generated text translation of what's being said.
Skype Meeting broadcast is designed to allow a small number of speakers to broadcast a presentation to up to 10,000 viewers, for webinars, company meetings and other large occasions. Right now, those viewers can only hear the presentation in whatever language the speaker is using, but this translation feature will help bridge that language barrier.
This launch brings a cool feature to Skype for Business that's based on technology previously used in the consumer version of Skype. It comes at a time when the company is pushing hard to get Skype for Business in use at as many companies as possible. Microsoft faces stiff competition in that arena both from established players and upstarts like Slack and Hipchat.
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