Anonymous - 2002-05-30

Take a look at

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/29/239228&mode=thread&tid=126&threshold=4

DARPA apparently wants to have prototype hand-held two-way spoken lanugage translators, demonstrating 4 languages - Arabic, Mandarin, Pashto, and Dari.

  Is this as unworkable as it sounds to me, or is speech-recognition tech and speech processing AI that far more advanced in the classified circles than it is in the consumer circles?  And if so, why oh why is it not being brough out from under the "blanket"?  IMO, recognition or translation technology - of any kind - is not a particular "strategic advantage" calling for military classification (of course, "that's just not the way things are done around there..").