November 12, 2006

Speak 10 languages instantly Remember Leia's "translator device" in Jabba's palace? This was to become a reality in the near future thanks to advances in machine translation and voice recognition technology. Well, looks like Skype beat them to it (well, sort of).

Can't wait for the hilarious results which are sure to follow.

  • Can't wait for the hilarious results which are sure to follow. Ich auch.
  • Invented by Dr. Nick Riviera? Looks that way from the "That's not all!" language in the thread-ver-tisement.
  • What translator device? You mean Threepio?
  • When she was disguised as Boussh the Bounty Hunter and was talking to Jabba. (Am I remembering this correctly?)
  • No, that was totally threepio. Later she starts talking in English (or, as the expanded universe has dubbed it: star warsese) when she's all like "oooh, I love you Han Solo" and he's all "Oooh I'm blind and disoriented and vulnerable."
  • Weird, in the same thread as the main link there's some sort of chat-lie-detector you can buy. What can you tell us about the extras available for this "skype" program, sly_polyglot?
  • Hmm.. What am I thinking of, then? Wasn't there some device worn like a mouthpiece where some character was speaking in some alien language and it was coming out in "star warese"? (not the original babelfish in HHG either.) I noticed the chat-lie-detector too, and other goodies. All these extras are all new; Skype 3.0 is still beta and none of this crap existed before it. I just hope it doesn't go the way of ICQ 'cause as it is now it's an absolute godsend.
  • Leia was wearing the helmet, right, and all she said was "yatto, yatto" several times - filtered by some kind of weird vox effect - each time this apparently meant a whole bunch of different things (like 'I want more money for the Wookiee', & 'I'm holding a fucking thermal detonator, bitch') so whatever language that was, it was complex and weird. Her voice was certainly being altered by some kind of vocal thing. That much is certain. Whether she relied upon innate knowledge of the alien language or there was some kind of translator in the helmet, we won't ever know, but she was able to speak to Han in Basic (English, motherfucker) thru it before the reveal. Unless the novelisation has something to say on the matter, but then I'll argue some arcane nerdy thing against it. Now send me money.
  • What am I thinking of, then? Maybe Dune? The third stage navigator speaks some horrific gibberish which is instantly translated to Dunese. It's a nice effect.
  • Ok so I didn't imagine the whole thing then. But let me get this straight: she says "yatto yatto" several times, then some OTHER language comes out, THEN C3PO translates into Basic/English/Star Warese?? (Disclaimer: NOT a Star Wars geek. All I know of this scene is from what I remember of RotJ when I saw it in the theater x years ago as a kid. Had to Google "leia bounty hunter" to get "Boussh".) On preview: I did see "Dune" so it's a possibility, but all I remember is Sting with blood all over his hands shouting "I WILL kill him!"
  • *head asploeds from the memory of Sting-in-batwing-bikini-induced-teenage-lust* It's my theory that Sting in the batwing banana warmer was to geeky girls what Leia in the gold bikini was to geeky boys.
  • Just what women find attractive in that shameful exploitative scene with Sting, I'll never understand... And, Leia-as-slave? Meh. Now, Oola... *grroowl*
  • "she says "yatto yatto" several times, then some OTHER language comes out, THEN C3PO translates..." No, no. "Yatto, yatto" *is* the language she is using. Threeps translates that.
  • "Oh Sting where is thy death?" -From a review of "Dune" that appeared in the Washington Post
  • Oooh - pantastic!
  • In Dune, the translating device was attached to a huge tank that transported a fish-like amBASSador (or something). yer welcome.
  • That was a Guild Navigator. Once, it had been human.
  • The Bene Gesserit witch must leave!