CMU the driver behind its region's companies in LT
abstract:
If that Northwest Airlines plane had some Pittsburgh-grown technology for its co-pilot, it would not have over-shot its airport by 150 miles in late October.
A synthesized voice would have repeatedly told the pilots something like, "You just missed Minneapolis." The voice might even have scolded the crew in Spanish or some other language.
Led by a deep research base at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh is a virtual mecca of language technology. The region is home to 20 or more companies, mainly spun out of CMU, that employ computer technology to unravel babel.
The software applications at these companies can convert text to synthesized speech or human speech to text, sort vast amounts of text, and even translate human speech into synthesized speech of another language in seconds.
"In the United States, this is clearly the place for language technology," said Jaime Carbonell, a CMU professor of computer science and director of the university's Language Technologies Institute. He has been involved with five spinout companies.
date of publication:
2009-11-29 00:00
news service:
Trib Total Media