Speereo has been in the
WHAT’S HOT
voice recognition business for some time already. Their other popular program,
Speereo Voice Organizer, uses voice commands to
navigate and retrieve PIM information. They make
good use of voice recognition throughout the program.
For instance, you can not only speak to your Pocket PC
to have it recognize the phrase, you can also speak to
it to navigate the user interface. For instance,
you can say "Travel… I need a ticket, please." to
have the program navigate to the Travel phrase area,
look up "I need a ticket, please", and speak the
corresponding phrase in your target language. That can be much faster than picking and clicking.
Second, Titan has considered what you’ll need next after the
phrase book. They’ve integrated a travel guide
feature into the program. Columbus Travel Guides
have been specially adapted to Speerio Voice
Translator to provide comprehensive and detailed
information including sights, hotels, and restaurants.
Speereo Voice Translator uses
SETUP
ActiveSync’s Add/Remove Programs functionality to
install with an interesting twist: The program
installs in segments. The Voice
Translator program itself, the Speech Engine, and
Translators for Italian, Spanish, German, French, and
Russian each install as an individual program. You can install each of these segments in main memory, on a
storage card, or in a ROM file store. I didn’t
notice any significant decrease in speed of operation
regardless of where I installed the segments, but
allowing you to install separately like this not only
allow you to load only the Language Translator you
want, but it also allows you to put the Language
Translators, which take up a fair bit of space, on a
storage card, but leave the program and Speech Engine
in main memory where they’ll load faster.
PROGRAM FEATURES
Speereo Voice Translator
main screen
When
you first run Speereo Voice Translator, you’ll get the
"splash" screen shown above. (When you
run the program subsequently, it will wherever you
were when you closed the program.) The buttons
in the center area of the screen open specific phrase
topic window with common phrases which you can select.
At the bottom of the screen are the Setup, Travel
guide, and About buttons. The About button
simply displays information about the program
including the version number. Setup takes you to
the screen shown below:
Speereo Voice
Translatore Setup screen
The Setup screen is pretty straightforward. The
top section lets you select the target language from
any of the installed language translators. The
next section sets the font characteristics used to
display the text translation. The next section
allows you to select a "skin." A skin, as far as
Voice Translator is concerned, sets the color scheme
of the elements of the user interface and the
background of the main screen. At present, there
are only two skins for Voice Translator. The
default is the yellow tinted one you’ll see in this
review. The other is a blue tinted one.
There doesn’t appear to be any information available
on how you’d create other skins. The next
section has the [Buttons setup] button alone. Pressing it gives you the screen below:
Speereo Voice Translator
Buttons Setup screen
The Buttons Setup screen lists the hardware buttons on
the Pocket PC and allows you to assign functions to
them while you’re in Voice Translator. You can
set a button to scroll down or up, switch to the next
or previous tab, set the sound level, go to the next
or previous topic, go to the main window, show the
context topics window, show the setup window, maximize
the phrases list, say the translation (again), exit
the program, recognize speech, or do nothing.
Most of these functions are self-explanatory.
The "recognize speech" function is the one you use to
issue voice commands and to recognize spoken phrases
in English to translate. One odd thing about the
list of buttons: the Record Button (button 5) though
normally associated with voice functions, isn’t in the
button list.
The final segment of the Setup screen has the [Set
defaults], [OK], and [Cancel] buttons. As you’d
expect, the [OK] button closes the Setup screen making
all the changes to settings you’ve made. The
[Cancel] button closes the screen and reverts to your
current settings. The [Set defaults] button
restores the settings the program had when you
installed it.
Travel Guides
Pressing the [Travel guide] button from the main
screen brings you to the screen shown below, listing
all the travel guides you have installed. Select
the guide you want from the list and tap the [OK]
button to open it.
Speereo Voice Translator
— Travel Guide selection screen
When you select a guide, it will display the cities
within that country for which it has travel
information. I selected "Argentina" from the
list and got the display below
Travel Guide main screen
showing cities and "Main info" link
Clicking on "Main Info" will call up a screen like
that shown below:
Travel Guide — Main
Info display
The "Main Info" screen has all kinds of links to
important information you may need while visiting the
country. For instance, it has contact
information including information on what types of
visas and passports are valid, how to use credit and
debit cards within the country, and contact
information for various government agencies.
If
you tap on one of the city names in the main Travel
Guide screen, you’ll get a display like the one below
for Buenos Aires:
Travel Guide — City
information screen
The city information screen shows links to
city-specific information including attractions,
shopping, tours, and how to get there by various modes
of transportation. Below is the screen that
you’d see if you tapped on the "Sightseeing" link.
Travel Guide — City
sightseeing information
Note
that a navigation bar has appeared near the top of the
display. There are buttons to take you backward
and foreword in the links you’ve picked. The 
button returns you to to Main Screen. The 
button will switch back and forth between the screen
you’re currently viewing and the phrase translation
screen. For instance, it could switch between
the sightseeing overview shown above and a list of
Useful phases in Spanish.
Phrase Translation
Speaking of phrases, lets turn our attention to that
portion of the program now. If you tapped
"Useful" from the main screen, you’d get a screen like
the one shown below:
Speereo Voice Translator
— Useful phrases screen
The phrase translation window shows the text
translation at the top, a tool bar below that, and a
tabbed phrase selection pane below that.
Clicking on a phrase in the phrase selection window
will result in both a text display of the translation
and a spoken translation. The quality of the
spoken phrases isn’t great, but I did find that my
Spanish friends could easily tell what the Pocket PC
was saying.
The tool bar has a number of buttons. The 
button allows you to adjust the speech volume.
The forward and backward buttons go back and forth in
the links you’ve selected. The 
button will remove the tabs from the interface
allowing more room for the phrase list. Next to
that button is a status display. It normally
says "Ready" as shown, but changes to "Play" when the
phrase is being spoken. The button returns to the Main Screen. The 
button drops down a list of sub-topics for the
particular tab you have selected. Below, you’ll
see the sub-topic list for the "Phases" tab:
Speereo Voice Translator
— sub-topic drop down
The
button
swaps back and forth between the current screen and
the currently open Travel Guide. The [Setup]
button calls up the Setup Screen we saw previously.
The tabs below the tool bar allow you to get more
specific about the type of phrases you’re looking for.
For instance, Useful Phrases has specific phrases on
Weather and Colors. Shopping Phrases has
specific phrases for Home appliances, Souvenirs,
Clothes, Automotive, and more. Tapping on a tab
will display the specific phrase set. Below, you
can see a list for "Books and periodicals."
Speereo Voice Translator
— Books and periodicals phrases (with tabs hidden)
How Well Does it
Work?
Now that you’re familiar with the user interface, I’ll
bet you’re wondering how well the program works in
actual use. Since I’m not traveling abroad while
I write this, I did the next best thing: I
visited some of my Spanish-speaking friends and tried
it out. The results were not phenomenal, but
they were acceptable. I was afraid I’d spend
most of my time hunting for the correct phrase and
we’d all get tired of the exercise. With a
little practice, I was pick out the phrase I needed
with only a few false taps. Likewise, when I
went to voice control and recognition, it went even
faster. I did have to backtrack a few times,
either because I went to a topic that didn’t have the
phrase I wanted or because it didn’t correctly
recognized my command. There were a few mis-recognized
phrases as well but, since it displays what it thinks
it’s translating as well as the translation, I could
stop and repeat the phrase over. It usually got
it right the second time. My friends were
intrigued by the program and did a bit of testing
themselves. Voice Translator even did a passable
job of recognizing English while spoken with a Spanish
accent.
There were a few things I noticed in the testing.
First, all of these Spanish-speaking folks were also
very conversant in English. If they hadn’t been,
I might have been able to communicate with them, but
they wouldn’t be able to do so with me. Speereo
Voice Translator only translates one way.
The second thing I noticed, which is true of all voice
recognition software, is that it works a lot better
with little ambient noise and when the speaker
enunciates very clearly. This isn’t a program
for mush-mouths unless you’re satisfied with picking
the phrases with your stylus.
The final thing I noticed was that, although I wasn’t
initially impressed with the quality of the voice
output, my Spanish-speaking friends didn’t have
trouble understanding it. I suppose that’s like
us English speakers who can actually understand what’s
coming over the loud-speaker in the baseball stadium,
regardless of the distortion.
HELP SUPPORT
Speereo Voice Translator has built-in help for each
page. Tapping the "?" at the top of any page
will give instructions for that page. There is
also a Microsoft Word formatted Documentation file
which is installed on your desktop system when you run
the installer. There are also
forums on Speereo’s web site where you can ask
further questions. Finally, you can contact
Speereo
via e-mail with questions.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Speereo Voice Translator requires 880K of storage for
the program, 1MB of storage for the Speech Engine, and
854KB for French, 1039KB for German, 868KB for
Italian, 911KB for Russian, and/or 970KB for Spanish
language translation. It also requires 4.22MB of
Program Memory to run with all the language
translators present. It doesn’t crash WM2003SE,
but it also doesn’t display properly in landscape
orientation. It will also run under Pocket PC
(2000), Pocket PC 2002, and Windows Mobile 2003 (First
Edition) operating systems.
BUGS AND WISHES
There weren’t any true bugs that I noticed in my
testing. However there were a few issues I had
with the way Titan chose to do things: First,
the program uses a non-standard window. There’s
no Title Bar. That may not seem like much, but
the Start Menu is in the Title Bar. Without it,
there’s no standard way to switch to another program. The only way to get to another program is to have it
attached to one of the hardware buttons and then only
if you haven’t programmed that button to do some
function within Voice Translator.
On the same note, the [X] at the top of the screen really
closes the program. The Pocket PC standard is
that [X] switches the program to run in background. It’s already hard enough to explain how the [X] works
without some programs implementing it differently.
The other problem I had with the interface is that sometimes,
there was a "back" button which would take you to the
previous screen. Sometimes there wasn’t and you
had to engage in a little creative clicking to back
out. This was especially true in the travel
guides.
A third issue is really only an observation: Speereo
Voice Translator only provides for half of the
conversation. You can translate phrases from
English to any of the target languages, but you can’t
do the reverse. The program is still very useful
in that capacity, but it there are some situations
where it won’t work because it can’t translate what
the other person is saying into English. This is
possible to some extent with a paper Phrase Book. Although I understand the difficulties involved, I’d
really love to see a two-way translator program for
the Pocket PC.
The final issue I had with the program is the quality of the
voice output. It’s about the quality you’d
expect from an inexpensive tape recorder. Titan
does have optional high quality voices as an add on
which you can
download from the Speereo web site. As I
said earlier though, even though the quality doesn’t
sound great, it seems to be understandable by speakers
of the target language.
PURCHASING
You can purchase Speereo Voice Translator from the
pocketnow Store. There is
a multi-language version, which I’ve reviewed here for
$40. There are also single language
translators available for
Spanish,
Russian,
German,
French, and
Italian for $19.95. Users of previous
versions of Speereo’s translator software can
upgrade for $25. You can also download the
trial version which will allow you to test the
program. The trial version only translates
"Travel" phrases.
The Columbus Travel Guide add-ons cost $10 per country and
include all major cities in that country. You
can also buy "Regions" such as Europe, Asia, or the
Middle East for $40 each. Those include all
countries and their most known cities.
PROS
- Recognizes
voice commands as well as phrases to translate - Can
install segments on different media - Operates
quickly after little practice
CONS
- Only
provides one side of the conversation
Non-standard Windows CE Interface- Doesn’t
allow for switching to other programs - The [X] button really
closes the program - Doesn’t
always have a way to "back out" of a screen
- Doesn’t
Incompletely compatible with WM2003SE
Overall, I’m quite
OVERALL
IMPRESSION
pleased with Speereo Voice Translator. I
expected the program to be harder to navigate.
It turned out to be quite easy to "drill down" to the
phrase I wanted with a little practice. I was
also impressed that, although it made mistakes in
recognition, it made surprisingly few of them
regardless of the fact that it was dealing with a
variety of speakers. With its combination of
Travel Guide and Phrase Translation, Speereo Voice
Translator makes a very useful travel companion.
It won’t make you fluent in the target language, but
it will help you overcome the language barrier in a
large variety of situations that a traveler abroad is
likely to encounter. If you’re looking for a
program that will provide that kind of specific
assistance, definitely give Speereo Voice Translator a
look.
All screenshots in this
review are taken using
SOTI’s Pocket Controller Pro
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