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Skype for Business Will Soon Offer Live Meeting Translation

By Alicia Young Web Editor

Skype (News - Alert) Meeting broadcast is innovative in that it allows a small number of speakers to broadcast a presentation to up to 10,000 viewers. This feature can be beneficial for webinars, company meetings and other large occasions. But, what if you don’t speak the same language as the presenters? As of now, viewers can only hear the presentation in the language the speaker is using. Therefore, this lack of a translator has limited the variety of people who could be listening in on any given presentation. However, thanks to a new development from Microsoft (News - Alert), this problem will be taken care of.

Later this year, Skype for Business will see the launch of a new beta feature that will offer live captioning during meeting broadcasts. This live captioning feature will be available in an impressive 40 different languages. This new facet of the program will be powered by Bing’s Translator technology. So, how exactly will it work? Speakers will be able to talk in one of the supported native languages, and then their viewers will be able to see a computer-generated text translation of what’s being said. This new development is a vast improvement to a system that, previously, had no translation option for meeting broadcasts.

Aside from international audiences, this feature will also be beneficial to hearing-impaired users. They too will now be able to see live captions from feeds that are sent over Skype Meeting Broadcast.

Although there is no set release date for this new addition, it is sure to be a success that will prove to be much more inclusive. With this new feature, anyone could potentially view one of the broadcasts without issue. Skype for Business has also not come out and said which languages will be supported but, since the system will be powered by Bing Translator, a variety is expected. Bing Translator can handle voice input in seven different languages, so we will have to wait and see if all these languages are offered when the feature launches.

Edited by Stefania Viscusi