Imagine in the very near future, technology allowing  humans to bridge geographic and language boundaries to connect mind to mind and heart to heart in ways never before possible.  Gurdeep Pall

This blew my mind.  Please watch this video and consider the possibilities.

Earlier this week, at the the Re/Code Conference, Gurdeep Pall, Microsoft Vice President of Skype and Lync, and German-speaking Diana Heinrichs, of Microsoft, demoed real-time translation over Skype.  The video shows the magic of near real-time translation of a  English/German conversation using Skype Translator.  To say ” it rocked,” seems an understatement.

Although it’s not a perfect magic, imagine how this capability could connect our classrooms.  Imagine how we might use it to conference with parents who are just learning English.  Imagine how it might connect us as humans.

The result of decades of work, Microsoft plans to make Skype Translator available as a Windows 8 beta app at the end of the year. 

In his blog post Pall shared;

As you saw from my conversation with Diana, it is early days for this technology, but the Star Trek vision for a Universal Translator isn’t a galaxy away, and its potential is every bit as exciting as those Star Trek examples. Skype Translator opens up so many possibilities to make meaningful connections in ways you never could before in education, diplomacy, multilingual families and in business.